


burgeoning dandelions

by Vamppeach



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Coming of Age, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Pre-Canon, this is basically a coming of age story masquerading as ABO. please be aware., though the fic continues on into canon events
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24200512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vamppeach/pseuds/Vamppeach
Summary: To say Daichi never gave much thought toward the whole alpha and omega thing is probably an understatement. As far as Daichi knows, he's null, same as his parents, so it just doesn’t impact him. It probably never will. Best to live and let live.People got weird about alphas and oemgas, especially people who are null; the general public has a voyeuristic sort of curiosity that makes Daichi uncomfortable. He doesn't want to be weird, and he definitely doesn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, so he leaves the matter alone and tries not to think too much about it.He is definitely thinking about it now. "Are you?"Suga looks up from his notes, head tilted in his palm, a perfect picture of puzzlement if not for the glint in his eye. "Am I...""Are you an omega?"Oh, he wasdefinitelybeing weird.Suga's mom is null, but his dad is an omega. His parents explained secondary sex to him at a young age, so he was familiar with heats well before they became an awkward topic, and he's kept this nonchalant attitude into adolescence.As for Daichi- Well, he's doing his best.
Relationships: Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 43
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It was only a matter of time before I dipped my toes into an A/B/O AU.  
> Unfortunately, I seemed to have jumped in the deep end. This is a long one.  
> Please enjoy. 
> 
> Title from Natalie Wee's poem "Least of All"  
> Thanks to Gray and Sam for checking the summary over for me, and a very special thank you to Silver for betaing the prologue despite not being in this fandom. U a real one.

**YEAR 1**

* * *

If someone told Daichi he would spend more of his first year as a member of the volleyball club indoors reading textbooks than practicing in the gym, he wouldn't have believed it. Sitting around is no way to make nationals. 

Except it kind of _is_ how the team will make it to Nationals. So here he is. 

Well, here _they_ are: Spread out on the clubroom floor, several years of exercise science journals between them and one _hell_ of a headache. 

Daichi looks up, squinting. The brilliant purple sunset they were reading by has long since faded away, leaving only the dingy yellow lightbulb to light the page in front of him. 

Suga puts down his papers and starts digging through his bag. 

“Geez," Daichi groans, rubbing at the kink in his neck, "Is it really this late? Boy, I lost track of time.”

His back hurts. The beginning of a tension headache from squinting to read throbs in the back of his skull, his neck aches from bending to read, and the rest of him is sore from practice. Once he's aware of it he can't help groan, even as he bites back his more verbal complaints. 

Suga makes a noise, already half-absorbed in algebra homework. 

"You don't have to stay in the clubroom just because I lost track of time." Daichi likes the company, but Suga can’t be comfortable, laying on his stomach, head propped in his palm and bent over homework. There aren’t exactly posture-friendly ways to sprawl out on the clubroom floor, but that had to be one of the worst for screwing up your neck. 

Suga sets down his pencil and looks at him blandly. "Hey, Daichi? What part of 'I illegally downloaded academic exercise journals' implies I didn't plan on staying out late?"

"Point." 

Suga's lips twitch into a slanted smile. "I don't really want to go home right now unless I have to, so I'm glad for the company." 

"Yeah?" Daichi says, clearly asking for more, while trying not to pry. He met Mr. and Mrs. Sugawara once because their family had a car and they volunteered to cart players to and from a tournament. They seemed like really nice people. Friendly, involved in Suga's life, called him _Koushi-chan._ He can't imagine why Suga doesn’t want to go home. Maybe they have extended family over? 

"My dad is an omega, so..." 

Wait. Okay, that wasn't what he- hm. Well. "Oh. So then why-" 

Suga snorts. 

"He's in heat, Daichi." 

"Oh! Shit, sorry!" Daichi would like to melt into the floor. _Hey, why aren't you going home? Oh, because your dad is super horny, cool, thanks for telling me._ Daichi wants to die. "My whole family's null, so-" He just didn't- he doesn't _think_ about that sort of thing. 

Unaware of his meltdown, Suga hums a noncommittal noise and reabsorbs himself in his homework, as if they hadn’t spoken at all. Or maybe he is aware, but decided to show mercy, and let Daichi implode with some privacy. Either way he could kiss him. 

So Suga comes from one of those families, then? Daichi's parents are null, as are his uncles and his grandparents and each of his cousins as well. The Sawamuras have no secondary sex expression in their family line for at least two generations, maybe more. He sort of recalls something about an alpha uncle, some three generations back? Some far-off relative with enough greats before his name so as to be essentially meaningless. 

To say Daichi never gave much thought toward the whole alpha and omega thing is probably an understatement. As far as Daichi knows, he's null, same as his parents, so it just doesn’t impact him. It probably never will. Best to live and let live. 

People got weird about alphas and oemgas, especially people who are null; the general public has a voyeuristic sort of curiosity that makes Daichi uncomfortable. He doesn't want to be weird, and he definitely doesn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, so he leaves the matter alone and tries not to think too much about it.

He is definitely thinking about it now. "Are you?"

Suga looks up from his notes, head tilted in his palm, a perfect picture of puzzlement if not for the glint in his eye. "Am I..." 

"Are you an omega?" 

Oh, he was _definitely_ being weird. 

Suga smiles at him, as if to say, _Yes, you are being super weird but I'm ignoring it, because we're friends._

Well, at least they’re friends. 

"Chances are pretty good, yeah. It's a bit of a waiting game." He sighs. "People usually take after the same-sex parent? But my mom is null, so there's a chance... We’re giving it about a year before calling it. That'd be pretty late even for late blooming." 

He tries to imagine spending his first year of high school just waiting for the other shoe to drop. "That sounds... Stressful?" 

Suga sets down his pencil and nimbly rolls onto his back, officially abandoning his homework, which frankly is encouragement Daichi doesn't need. "It won't change much, but I’d like to _know.”_

Won't change much? Daichi doesn't know about that. Regular heats sound at least a _little_ disruptive, don’t they? Like, Suga is banning himself from his own house so his dad can... Yeah, okay, Daichi would stay out of the house too if he could help it.

"Do you wanna do this at my place tomorrow?”

Suga offers him a relieved smile. "That'd be great."

* * *

The next day, he and Daichi don't stay after practice.

"Not working late tonight?" Tashiro prods, grinning expectantly. The captain has been very accommodating to a pair of first years taking it upon themselves to change up how they practice. A lesser captain might take it as a challenge, but Tashiro wants Nationals as much as they do. 

"Ah, we're still working late. Itinerary doesn't write itself, you know." 

In some of Suga’s less charitable moments, nursing his sore neck from craning over exercise science textbooks, he wonders why the captain hasn't done some of his own research, if he's so keen on restoring their team to its former status. 

It's not fair, he knows. _Some_ people have lives. Some people are seniors with college prep and families breathing down their necks to get a good job and be a good alpha. 

God, Suga is glad his parents hate that kind of attitude. 

"Yeah, the clubroom is murder on my back," Daichi adds while Suga pulls his undershirt back over his head. He tosses his uniform jacket in with his gym clothes. The weather might be starting to turn cool, but he's still _hot_ from their workout. He wonders how far Daichi lives from school, and if he could swing stealing his shower, or if that would be too forward. 

On their walk home, Daichi keeps rubbing at the back of his neck; it's his nervous habit, and Suga is fairly certain Daichi is working himself up to ask a question about his dad. Suga's never been one to find the clueless act attractive; he likes competence, is attracted to competence, but there's something stupidly endearing about the way Daichi gets over this, a sort of painful self-awareness he can't help but like. 

"Thanks again for having me over, Daichi."

"Oh, yeah, I mean- Any time you need an out, my mom is easy so long as I keep my grades up, so..." He trails off, laughs, a little self-deprecating. Again that endearing, self-aware cluelessness. "I'd probably want to stay out of the house too if my parents were..." He makes a face.

Suga laughs. "It's not always sex, you know! It's affection too. But I'm older now and my parents deserve... date nights." He scrunches his nose. 

"That's pretty mature."

"It's just sex. They're my parents. Obviously they have sex." 

"Still not great to think about."

"...Not really, no."

Daichi stops at one of the gates, as nondescript as the rest of the neighborhood save for the mail plaque reading _Sawamura_. Their conversation lulls while Daichi digs around in his bad, leaving Suga with nothing to focus on except the worn-out ache in his legs, his sore neck and incredibly, incredibly tight shoulders. The nights have just begun to lose their summer heat, but his whole body is still warm with exertion.

"We need a better cooldown," he sighs, pushing off the wall to follow Daichi through the unlocked gate and into his home.

"My room’s on the left," Daichi nods toward the hall. "I'll, uh, grab us a snack?"

"Great, I'm starved." He might have teased Daichi for suddenly sounding so unsure, but he's too busy kicking off his shoes while taking in the rest of his house. It's warmer inside than is entirely comfortable, open windows retaining golden sunset heat even as the sun finally dips beyond the horizon. With the lights off, it casts the rooms in a pinkish, blueish hue. It's really quite pretty, but it's hard to focus on while still sweaty and hot from practice. He watches Daichi make his way into the kitchen and wonders again if asking for his shower would be too forward. 

He wanders down the hall. No one emerges from the door on his right. “Hey, where are your parents?” 

“Uhh, my mom's a nurse so she does long shifts."

Chances of shower: Very good.

Daichi's room is tidy. Made bed, textbooks in a stack on his desk, and a miniscule, blocky television on top of his dresser, so old it comes with a built in tape player. The only piece of intentional decor is a framed photo of Daichi and a team of strangers in volleyball uniforms grinning at the camera. It's not that his room is spartan, or boring, just that he clearly doesn't spend much time in it. Should he be honored that Daichi invited him over, then, or disappointed? 

Either way he should probably stop poking around before Daichi gets back and finds him rummaging through his desk. He shrugs his bag off his shoulder... There's nowhere to sit other than at his desk, but Daichi was the one complaining of a sore back. He dithers between the desk or the bed, but decides it doesn't really matter. 

He dumps his bag onto Daichi's bed and is in the process of divvying the articles he brought into stacks when Daichi comes in, bag of chips under his arm and a plate of sliced apples balanced on his palm. 

"Sure, make yourself comfortable." 

Suga grins. "If you insist."

Daichi shoves the bag of chips between his lamp and a stack of books, then balances a plate of apple slices beside in what little space remains. 

"Hey…" Suga drawls, "Did you straighten up just for me?" 

"I didn't want to be rude," he says quickly, suddenly very focused on arranging his nightstand. The plate still looks pretty precarious. "How could you tell?" 

"Ah, your books are in a stack instead of on a shelf. Then you stacked the snacks on top of your alarm clock instead of clearing a space. Classic 'I don't know how to organize' behavior." 

Daichi laughs, somewhere between embarrassed and amused. "You caught me. I'm a mess."

He has a nice laugh. Deeper than it has any right to be, but he gets the sense Daichi was an early bloomer. Even his middle school volleyball photos have the jaw of half-puberty without any of the awkwardness, and his voice never cracks. Suga shoves an apple slice in his mouth so he doesn't have to answer, and hands over his stack of articles.

"I think we can probably make a better cooldown routine," he says around his mouthful.

"Yeah?" 

"Mhm." He takes another apple slice, and they lapse into comfortable silence. Despite the unfamiliar setting, Suga has always been good at studying, so once he adjusts to the dense academic language, he relaxes into a rhythm. The apple slices whittle away with the pages, and the evening whittles away with the sun. 

Between pages, he cannot help but turn over Daichi's awkward, earnest questions. Suga has never had cause to speak at length about omegas with anyone other than his parents before, and it seems as though Daichi has never had cause to speak of them at all. Suga’s father is an omega, so the reality was present all through his childhood. He knew about heats long before his young mind understood it should be awkward, and they remained ordinary well beyond the age where he understood why his parents sent him for a sleepover with his grandmother about once every month. It's a fact of life, the way puberty is a fact of life. 

But it isn't a fact of Daichi's life. The thought is as strange to him as it must be to Daichi, so he takes the questions with grace.

And it wasn't _always_ his parents making eyes across the dining room table. Sometimes it was just excessive closeness, an earnest desire for human touch in all its forms. Some of his warmest, happiest childhood memories were the days just before they sent him to his grandmother's, nights spent close on the couch watching whatever he wanted, days with his parents' full, rapt attention. 

He wonders if he could bring up those memories without it being weird. 

He realizes he hasn't gotten any work accomplished.

As if sensing Suga's distraction, Daichi stretches, shirt moving as his muscles flex beneath. It's… not a bad picture. Daichi looks at him. 

Ah. He's staring.

Suga blinks. "Sorry, what?" 

"I said, this stuff is unbearably dry." 

"Oh, yeah, if you dropped your phone in water, exercise science could bring it back from the dead. Definitely." 

Daichi barks a laugh as he finishes his stretch, tilting his head to one side until it _pops,_ and then the other. "Next time can we do something that's actually fun? I just read the same sentence at least five times."

"Like you aren't into this."

"Yeah, I want our team to get better, but I'm not _inhuman."_ A beat. "Uh." Daichi rubs at his neck, again. Suga notices. He can't make himself not notice. It's- distracting. "I swear I'm well-adjusted but, what do people do for fun that isn't volleyball?"

Suga actually has to think about it. It seems like volleyball is all he's done this year, and this week especially, since he's been sure to stay out late. It only made sense to throw himself into club activities, and Daichi was willing to be right there with him. 

It was _fun,_ even when Daichi got awkward about omegas. Maybe especially then, because it made him rub at the back of his neck exactly like he's doing now. 

He rests his back against the wall, suddenly aware that he is sore all over from practice. "Honestly Daichi, I don't have a clue."

"Wow, we're hopeless."

"We're _devoted,"_ he corrects. But he does want to spend time with Daichi, outside of a club context. Like friends. They _are_ friends, just... stupidly, wholly invested in volleyball friends. "There's a really good noodle place downtown? My parents usually treat me when I nail a test, but I think we've earned it." 

"You sure? I don't wanna butt in on a family thing." 

Suga rolls his eyes. "I'm inviting you. And my parents are _not_ coming, or did you forget?" 

"Right." 

Oh, he totally forgot. "You _are_ hopeless." He laughs, but it breaks into a yawn on the last beat. "Come on, let's finish this stack of articles. We have noodles to look forward to."

They get back to work, pace slowed by the hour. The next thing he's aware of is a hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him awake. He opens his eyes. "Mrs. Sawamura..." He says, slowly blinking to awareness. The room is dark, no trace of orange sunset coming through the windows; they are lit only by Daichi's shaded yellow desk lamp. Daichi, who is asleep at his desk, hunched forward and breathing evenly. Well, that will be hell on his back in the morning. Suga yawns. "What time is it?"

"Ten-thirty." Daichi's mother smiles at him, amusement crinkling in her eyes. "Have you boys eaten?" 

He glances at the nightstand with its empty bag of potato chips stacked on an empty paper plate on top of his alarm clock. "Ah..."

"Mom?" 

Daichi twists in his chair. There's a fine white line on his forehead where it dug into the edge of his desk, and a spot of wetness on his forearm. 

"Good morning." 

"It's not morning," Daichi deadpans. 

His mother smirks. "No, but it is very late."

"...We lost track of time."

"Again," Suga adds. 

He struggles to his feet. The vague, over-exerted discomfort in his muscles has morphed into a full-body ache from sleeping in such a stupid position. 

"I'm going to heat up some leftovers for you boys. Suga, why don't you stay the night? It's late, we have an extra futon."

"I couldn't-"

She smiles at him again, but it's the kind of smile that leaves no room for argument. Suga shuts his mouth. 

"Mom-"

"You get so wrapped up in your club activities. Someone has to make sure you boys don't fall apart, and I'm your mother." 

Daichi opens his mouth again, but Suga knows this tone from his own mother so he jumps in before Daichi can attempt the impossible, and argue. "Thank you?"

"Good answer." 

Well, in that case- He's already imposing, and his body hurts all over, so, "May I borrow your shower, Mrs. Sawamura?"

Laughter. "That didn't take long! Go ahead. Daichi, get out the futon while I heat up your dinner, please." 

Suga can't get the shower quite as hot as he wants, but it feels so good to wash the tension from his body that by the time he finishes, all the house lights are off save for a faint yellow glow in the direction of the kitchen. 

Daichi is already seated, a pair of plates and chopsticks laid out on the table, microwave whirring behind him. A small, yellow canary night-light bathes the kitchen in sleepy yellow tones. Daichi's wet hair drips down his back and onto the linoleum. Suga pauses in the doorway, laughing to himself. "That explains where all the hot water went." 

"Your shower was twice as long as mine." 

And still not nearly as long as he would have liked. 

Suga shrugs in concession and joins Daichi at the table, warm, still a little achy, but the mostly hot water did away with enough of his muscle tension that he doesn't terribly mind. So he turns his attention to the food instead, suddenly aware that he's starving. They both heap out some food and eat in comfortable silence.

"Sorry." Daichi sighs. 

“For what?”

"My mom is pushy." 

Suga rolls his eyes. "So is mine. Moms are like that, you know. Because they love you?" He takes a bite. It's a little on the dry side, but it's leftovers, and still good. He takes another, contemplative. "I don't have many close friends, so she gets..."

"Invested?" 

"Yeah."

They yawn in unison. 

"Thanks for letting me stay, though. Practice killed me."

"Guess you'll have to get better." 

Suga sticks out his tongue. When they’re finished eating he sends a quick text telling his parents where he's at, to no response. Chances are, they're... busy. Falling asleep at Daichi's was a blessing in disguise, for him and his parents. 

"Do you wanna jog to school?" 

"I thought you said practice killed you."

Suga grins. "I’m a glutton for punishment." 

"Alright, you're on." 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Suga wakes exhausted and disoriented. What _time_ is it? He can usually tell the hour by whatever radio program is playing on his alarm clock, but this alarm wails tonelessly in his ear and jolts him into waking. Without looking, he fumbles to turn the damn thing off, and- Hits Daichi in the face. 

Oh, right. 

"Ugh," Daichi says. 

Which is about how Suga feels. "Morning," he says thickly, sitting up. "How much sleep did we get?"

"About seven hours, I think. You snore by the way." 

He's not awake enough to offer much of a retort, so instead he just sits up and groans. Last night's soreness stiffened overnight, more than just the typical post-practice soreness that's become a background noise to his everyday life. He feels like he was hit by a truck. How is he going to get through practice feeling like this? 

(He's kind of looking forward to it. )

"Hey, can I borrow something to wear for practice? I sweat through what I wore yesterday." 

"Sure." Daichi doesn't even quip at him about sweating through his gym clothes, just sits up looking bleary. 

"You're not great with mornings, huh?"

_"Ugh."_

They go through their respective morning routines. Daichi gets more talkative as the morning ticks by, so by the time they're eaten and are ready to leave, they've covered the weather, classes, the fact that Suga does _not_ snore, thank you, and their usual noodle orders (Suga likes extra spicy, and Daichi prefers a miso broth). 

"Race you?" Suga says, stretching for their run, eager to get his muscles moving. Somehow moving usually makes the soreness easier to ignore. 

"How about we pace ourselves." 

He sighs dramatically, but follows Daichi's pace anyway. It would do. 

* * *

The gym clothes Suga borrowed fit better than he thought they would, all things considered. Daichi's gym shorts fit fine, the elastic waist and pulls ties accommodating for their slight difference in frame. Daichi has the wider stance between them, not by much, but enough to really make him suited toward the solid receives and consistent jumps that make him such an ideal utility player. The shirt he borrowed hangs a few centimeters long, and it's just loose enough in the shoulders that he notices each time he lifts his arms. Which he does a lot. Because this is volleyball. 

Suga leans into a stretch and follows along with the count, shoulders moaning a quiet protest, the movement causing his shirt to bunch in a way just odd enough that it couldn't be ignored. After stretching they break off to practice their drills, and Suga loses himself half to muscle memory and half to exertion. It’s only slightly less enjoyable than usual. 

Sweat slides down the back of his neck. It itches. Suga wipes at his forehead, and pants, suddenly more exhausted than he has any right to be. He and Daichi picked a tough workout, but they were careful to keep it in their limits. They want to improve their team, not wreck their bodies. And Suga might not have Daichi's bulk, but he's always been confident in his stamina. And yet, the pleasant wear in his muscles has taken a sharp turn toward painful. His stomach cramps. Suga shoves the ball between his knees to bend over, hands on his thighs, and tries to catch his breath. Each desperate inhale smells like fresh wax and sweat, familiar but _intense_. Each exhale shakes like a sob. 

"Suga?" 

He startles. The ball rolls from between his legs. He looks up at Daichi, opens his mouth to say something but he can only think of how _cool_ Daichi's hand is between his shoulder blades. Suga's burning up, sweat-drenched and dizzy. Itchy from sweat and itchy under his skin. "Daichi," he gasps, and moves to stand. "I think I need- Nurse's office-" 

The next thing he's aware of is a sudden sensation of weightlessness, the gym floor rushing to meet him. Then Daichi, catching him before he hits the ground. Daichi's scent wraps around him. Faint, distinctly neutral, absent of that dizzying, suffocating intensity. Suga latches onto it immediately. It centers him. 

"Nice receive," he jokes, but Daichi doesn't laugh so maybe he didn't say it out loud after all. It's then Suga notices that the gym's gone quiet, no more sneakers squeaking on waxy hardwood or the smack of rubber. _Ah,_ he thinks. _I'm making a scene._ But he can't really stop. 

Daichi shouts for the captain over his shoulder, but without looking Suga knows he was already on the approach. That awareness itches in the back of his mind the same desperate way his skin itches.

"Kurokawa!" Captain Tashiro yells for the vice captain, panic riding in his voice. Suga laughs, shoulders shaking right into a full-body shudder. Tashiro looks and sounds so much younger than he is, it's easy to forget he's actually an alpha. It's kind of hard to ignore now, Tashiro coming closer, alpha scent carried by his sweat. _Shit,_ Suga can smell him, and he knows exactly what that means. 

It takes a moment for him to realize Daichi is helping him into Kurokawa's arms, but when he does, he makes an effort to put his own strength behind the transfer. For a moment, he stands on his own legs, shaky but head held high. 

"Thanks,” he says to Daichi with a nod. Then Kurokawa gets an arm around him, and Suga buries his face into his neck, the only omega scent in the room. It’s like a balm against the persistent itch under his skin; a non-threatening presence Suga is suddenly, desperately grateful for, so grateful he can’t even find it in himself to feel embarrassed. 

Well, Kurokawa _used_ to be the only omega in the room. Suga supposes that now there are two. 

Suga knew, logically, what to expect from a first heat: a sudden onslaught of sensation, senses opening to a wealth of new information, and all that input feeding down into hazy, aimless lust. But even knowing could not have prepared him for _this._

He shields his eyes from the gymnasium lights in Kurokawa's shoulder, but his next desperate inhale pulls in _too much._ The gym smells like sweat, salt, just enough adrenaline to feed his itch and- He buries his face deeper into Kurokawa's shoulder, until he's nosing against his neck. Yes. There it is again. Omega. Pack. Safe. He inhales deeply, the scent giving him enough coherence to try and steady his panting. It almost works. He inhales again. There are other scents, too, now that Suga tries to sift through all this new information. Tashiro on the other side of the gym, alarmingly strong despite the distance. _Alpha._ He knows that instinctually, too. He whimpers, but Tashiro doesn't come any closer, and he knows that's a blessing but it feels like a curse.

A third scent cuts through the confusion, so faint it barely registers. Null. But it's wrapped around him, a balm, and Suga focuses on narrowing his senses to that single smell. It's Daichi, he realizes, and goes lax against Kurokawa's side. Daichi all around him. Good. That's good. 

By the time they make it to the nurse's office, his head is cleared enough that, if he concentrates, he can focus on what's happening around him. Kurokawa sets him down in a straight-backed wooden chair. He grunts. "Why don't they make furniture in the nurse's office more comfortable? It should be comfortable, you know? No one's coming here because they feel good..." Kurokawa straightens without response, but that's normal for him, and... Ah, maybe his head is not as clear as he thought, if the way Kurokawa looks at him means anything at all. 

He leaves, presumably for the nurse. Suga doesn't like the way it smells in here, namely because it smells like nothing at all, and the lights here glare even brighter than the gym. At least the gym smelled like something, even if that something _(alpha)_ made him itch and want all over.

The nurse arrives. _She's null,_ his mind supplies, and he doesn't question how he knows it. At least all the new input is starting to make sense. 

"I'm in heat," he says to her. 

"You are." She nods at him once, perfunctory but not cold. Practical. It's almost as grounding as Daichi's clean, null scent. "Is it your first?" 

Suga nods back. 

"I thought so." _Do I really look that messed up?_ "I'll call whoever we have on file.”

Daichi watches Kurokawa lead Suga out the gym.

"He should be back in a few days," the captain says awkwardly, and moves to pick up practice as if nothing happened. Takahiro has a captain's composure, in his own way. He always kept going; he kept going when a game looked lost, and apparently, he kept going when a first year faints in practice. But it still didn't seem like him, pretending nothing happened. Something _did_ happen. 

Suga jogged with him to school that morning. His presence pushed Daichi to run a little faster, to push himself just a little harder than usual. He's not a show-off, but Suga's a friend- more than that, Suga's his teammate, and good teammates pushed each other. 

The point is: Daichi set a harsh pace, and Suga kept up regardless. The point is, that morning Suga was _fine._ Sore from their previous practice, sure, but exhilarated too. The point is 'back in a few days' is far too long an estimate. 

The point is Daichi is worried. 

"It was probably just something he ate," Daichi says to the captain, like he was defending Suga, even though deep down Daichi knows he really just said it to himself. 

Takahiro looks at him strangely and opens his mouth, but he just shakes his head. "Maybe!" He chirps. "Come one, come on. Practice isn't over yet." 

Daichi ducks out about ten minutes early and brings Suga's bag to the nurse's office. The nurse is a middle-aged woman Daichi remembers from the time he thought he sprained his ankle, with the kind of temperament that reminds him of his mother when his mom is between long shifts at the hospital. She is kind but no-nonsense, which is why he's so taken aback when the nurse won't let him any further than the door. 

"He can't see anyone right now." 

_Can't?_ That earlier pang of concern reemerges. Suga was just _fine_ this morning, and now he, what, fainted again once he reached the nurse? 

Probably Suga is just sleeping it off, whatever it was. Nothing to be done. Daichi focuses on what he can do instead. "He stayed the night last night, so if he's contagious...?" 

The nurse purses her lips. "He's not contagious. Just resting." 

Daichi sends his first text on the way home, letting him know he took care of his gym bag and uniform. He doesn't particularly expect an immediate response, but when he wakes up to an empty phone and arrives at class to find Suga still absent, he sends a second text, mostly just to wish him well - and if Suga happened to give him an update in response, well, he definitely wouldn't complain. 

No such luck. 

On the second day of Suga's absence, Daichi's faint concern grows into a proper worry. 

"He's fine," Captain Tashiro assures him at practice, picking up the volleyball from Daichi's feet. That's the easiest receive he's missed all practice, and by no means his first mistake of the day. "Suga's pretty resilient." He knows that. He _does._ But Suga fainted right in front of him and Daichi still feels all that dead weight in his arms, his overhot skin, can hear his labored breath. 

Tashiro claps him once on the back, and they get on with practice. A bolt of concern shoots through him every time he hits a set that doesn't come from Suga, and every day he doesn't meet the rest of them for lunch. 

It's getting a little out of hand. At the end of the week Daichi throws caution to the wind and shoots off a final message letting Suga know he's stopping by with that week's homework, and to have someone meet him at the door if Suga doesn't feel up to answering. Either way he'd probably get some sort of explanation. Yeah, Suga's resilient, but he can't stand not knowing what's wrong. And something is _clearly_ wrong.

Just as the final bell rings, Daichi gets a text from Suga in response: 

_I owe you one,_ followed by his address.

Really?

No mention of the missed days or acknowledgement of those ignored texts, barely even a thank you. 

Feeling irritated, Daichi stops downtown to pick up some noodles. 

The Sugawaras' front yard is a tidy reflection of his own home, put together the way Suga always seems so put together. Daichi knocks. 

It opens on the third knock, like someone was waiting right by the door. The Suga who greets him is decidedly _not_ put together. His hair sticks out in waves, like he hasn't brushed it in days, or hasn't gotten out of bed. Worry returns full force, taking over annoyance and strangling it completely. 

"Hey," Daichi says.

"Hey," Suga says back, neither quiet nor loud. He smiles. Is it sheepish? Maybe that's wishful thinking. _Why is that wishful?_

"Noodles!" 

Before he realizes what's happening, Suga takes the bag from his hands and pulls him in by the forearm. He stumbles over Suga's kitchen step. 

"Slow down!" He laughs. The pang of worry fades again. He's not sure he can take much more yo-yoing, but he thinks this might be the last of it as Suga grins brightly and takes him by the arm as easily as he had before. Daichi sits down, breathing a sigh of relief. 

"Chopsticks?" Suga chirps from across the kitchen.

"Please." 

Family photos decorate the fridge: vacation photos set on sandy backdrops; a very young Sugawara with his face stained red, basket of strawberries held proudly for the camera; Sugawara in what must be middle school, posing with a soccer ball. Daichi makes a note to tease him about that one later. They're all of Suga, now that Daichi really looks: Suga graduating primary school, Suga building a snowman. Suga, Suga, Suga.

 _It's affection,_ Suga explained to him once. He said his family was particularly close, but it's another thing to see it hanging plainly in the kitchen. 

Suga plops down across from him, brandishing a pair of chopsticks. 

"I have been thinking about these noodles all week." 

"The yellow cap is spicy.”

Suga makes a noise of appreciation that Daichi hears in his bones. 

They sit in silence for a moment, Suga absorbed in his food. His stomach must be fine too, if he's slurping down noodles and dumping in chili oil like that. It's a comfortable silence, the way their silences always are, but the lack of conversation does make way for curiosity to come creeping back into the forefront of his mind. 

"I've got your homework too," he says, mostly so he doesn't _ask._

"Mhm," Suga says mid-slurp. "Thanks Daichi. I know I'll have some time but I _hate_ feeling behind... Oh. Right." He points his chopsticks at Daichi just as he begins digging into his own cup of noodles. "You remember that waiting game?" He looks at him expectantly. 

Daichi pauses mid-bite, brain barely catching up in time. _It’s a bit of a waiting game-_

_Give it about a year-_

"So you're-"

Suga spreads his arms. "Officially omega." 

Oh! _Oh._ Daichi slurps tactfully at his noodles. What is he supposed to say, in this situation? Congratulations? _I'm sorry?_ Definitely not that one. "How was your, uh, first heat?" 

"Daichi!" 

Really? _Really?_ That's what his brain decided on? "That's not what I-"

Mercifully, beautifully, Suga laughs. "I know what you meant."

He breathes a sigh of relief he didn't realize he was holding. Suga's so patient, taking his complete, _embarrassingly_ thorough ignorance in stride. Even if Daichi gets the sensation he's being toyed with sometimes, it’s better than the alternative.

"It just,” Daichi makes a vague gesture, “It came on pretty sudden?”

Suga lets out his own sigh, and oh he wishes he knew which of them it was directed at. 

"It... didn't, actually." 

He decides Suga was sighing at himself. 

"I just missed the signs? I thought I was sore from practice, I thought I was tired from working late, I thought your room smelled strong because it was my first time over." 

He slurps matter-of-factly at his noodles, but Daichi knows Suga well enough to recognize when he's stalling for time. He's got that contemplative wrinkle just between his eyebrows, legs swinging against the tile floor. 

"We half-expected it, anyway. I caught on soon enough." 

Fainting in the gym counted as _soon enough?_ "Seriously. Are you okay?"

Another laugh, this one brighter and kinder and somehow still _softer_ than the one before, sweet in a way that makes him- 

It's just, it's a very nice laugh. It sounds nice. That’s all.

"Of course I am! It's only puberty." 

"Right. Just puberty." 

That seems to be the end of it, for now. They eat in mostly silence, broken only by their chopsticks scraping against styrofoam cups. Suga looks thoughtful, but Daichi doesn't press. What would he even _ask?_

If Suga wants to say something, he'll say it when he wants, and their silence is comfortable. He busies himself by admiring the photos again. The only one not of Suga and his parents is of a very young Suga in a woman's lap. Her hair is the gray of age, cut very short, wrinkles lining her eyes from years of smiling. She has Suga's smile and his mother's face, or he supposes Suga has her smile, and his mother has her face. Come to think of it, his grandma is the only extended family he recalls Suga ever mentioning, something about monthly sleepovers and too much candy. 

"I guess..." Suga sets down his chopsticks, drawing back his attention. "It was scary." 

Daichi doesn't know what to say to that, so he sets down his own chopsticks. "Scary how?" 

"Scary like- Intense. I don't know. I _didn't_ know. I mean I did but!" He scrubs a hand down his face. "I knew _exactly_ what to expect but it was so intense I couldn't... think." 

In the movies, in books, heat strikes like lightning, and leaves a storm of devastation in its wake. Changes things irrevocably. But those were exaggerations, right? Fiction, contrived, played up for drama. Television was enamored with omegas. Their whole damn culture was enamored with them, but only for this, for their heats, what it does to them. Daichi never put much stock in television.

"I thought it would be easier."

"Suga..." _Are you okay?_ But he already asked once, and Suga hates repeating himself.

"I mean, I'm fine! It's normal, right? My dad says they'll get easier. The first one is intense."

"Can I help?" 

Suga gapes, closes his mouth almost immediately, blinks away his dinner plate pupils and smiles at him, laughs, so quiet and gentle but _sweet_ that Daichi strains for more. "You brought me noodles." 

"That was before I knew." 

"Well, calories are important!" He taps his chin. "Contact is good too... Helps, I mean."

 _What kind?_ Somehow that feels like a traitorous thought. 

Maybe it shows on his face, or maybe Suga's thoughts steer toward the same vein, because he clarifies, "Heats are a period of increased tactile bonding." His tone is academic, like sharing a quote. "That doesn't mean- sex," he barely stumbles on the word, "Sometimes it does, but right now I kind of just... want lots of hugs?" 

Daichi blinks.

He laughs. 

"Don't laugh- You asked!" 

But he can't help himself. "Yes, I'm just- The movies really fucked that one up, huh?" 

"Do not get me started on movies. Don't get my _dad_ started. We'll be here all night." Suga picks up his chopsticks and digs heartily back into his noodles, grinning a familiar grin, his shoulders less tense than they were when Suga met him at the door, his limbs looser. "Thanks again, Daichi." 

"Don't mention it." 

A beat. 

"Would you do me a favor?"

His attention, which hadn’t wandered nearly as far as he liked, snaps immediately to Suga’s face. "What do you need?" 

Suga laughs. "Don't sound so serious. I'm just thinking... When I get used to my heats." 

_You fainted. How do you get used to that?_ Daichi keeps his mouth clamped shut. Suga plays it casual, and he means it, but a line of tension strings together his every chipper reassurance. _It's just puberty._ Suga believes it. Daichi believes it too. But- 

Knowing and acting aren't the same. Suga's trying to act. 

"Pro athletes play through heat all the time, right? It’s in their contracts. So...”

_Oh._

He doesn't mention how invasive interviews with pro omegas tend to get. Surely, Suga already knows better than him. Besides, "We're not pro athletes. We're not even college athletes." 

"Universities start scouting from teams that play in nationals. And we're _going_ to nationals. Or did you forget?" 

Daichi can't actually argue with that.

He argues anyway. "So that means you want to play while you're in-? Suga, Kurokawa doesn't even do that and he's the vice captain. No one expects that of you." 

"It's not about _your_ expectations!" he snaps, and Daichi holds his tongue. 

_You're acting like you have something to prove._ Suga has nothing to prove. He's a sharp setter, their _best_ setter, and so what if he has to sit out practice for a week? No one could fault him, especially because it can't be helped. 

"I expect it of me! I want to stay on the court, Daichi. Help me stay on the court."

Can he fault Suga for wanting to play, for being devoted to their club, to this sport? Suga has nothing to prove, but he has his _drive._

"If you want to play, show up. Tashiro won’t say no.”

"I need you to help me practice." 

"We already-" 

"While I'm in heat, obviously. Next month...ish, if they're regular." There's no question what _they_ refers to. "What if we're in a tournament and I just-" He runs a hand through his hair, fingers sticking through its tangled knots, which only makes him tug harder. Daichi nearly reaches out to take his hand. "It's common sense. How is this any weirder than the extra work we were already putting in?"

He means their research. _We were reading textbooks,_ he thinks. _This is about heat. That's physical. It's different._ But there's no sense arguing, and Suga makes- a few points. There's nothing wrong with being prepared. Daichi likes working with facts. Surety. He gets it.

"It's not like you to care so much about omegas and alphas,” Suga presses. “What about this is different?"

God, he wants to take his hand.

"I care. Of course I care about this stuff, Suga." He's just ignorant, and trying his hardest to understand without making Suga uncomfortable, without being weird. 

Somehow, that was the wrong thing to say. 

Suga finishes his bite of food and precisely sits his chopsticks in their cradle. All the loose-limbed cheer filling the kitchen pops like a bubble, so all that's left is Suga, still in his seat, fixing him with a strange, wounded look. Then it shutters, and Suga looks almost neutral, just the wrong side of content. 

"Daichi," he huffs, almost but not quite like a laugh because it is completely without humor. "Dai, Dai, it _sounds_ like you're telling me I should lay off because I'm an omega and I think you should explain what you really meant, because I know- I _know_ that can't be it." 

"What? No! Why would I-" God, so much for _trying not to be weird._ How bad at this is he? "I meant I care about-" He gestures around them, to this house filled to its brim with traces of the close-knit family that lives within, to all of it, and prays his meaning gets across. "I care about all of this because, you know, it's your _life,_ and I think it's pretty obvious I don't know shit." He rubs at the back of his neck. "I mean, obviously I don't know shit, if I could somehow make you believe I think you're anything other than the smartest player on our team." 

All the warmth that left the room rushes back and straight onto Suga's cheeks. "Flattery isn't-" 

"You've got this clarity on the court. Did you seriously not- Nevermind. That's not important. What I mean is yeah, Suga, I'll help you practice."

Suga exhales loudly; he was holding his breath, and that more than anything strikes home the extent of what this means for him, for them. 

"I knew you'd get it.” Suga smiles, relief and gratitude in equal measure. “Thanks." 

When Daichi gets home that evening, he goes immediately to his laptop and opens a tab.

He was so- so _lost,_ talking to Suga. Desperately, he wants to help him, be there for him, an understanding shoulder if not more. Whatever Suga needs he wants to give. And Suga, he's good at asking. He imposes himself with a smile so genuine it barely registers how asking to use your family's shower immediately after meeting them is maybe a little too forward. So if there's something Suga wants, something he _needs_ from him, he knows Suga would ask. 

He doesn't want to make Suga ask. 

So.

> Search: omegas 

As far as Daichi knows, only one fourth of the world’s population is omega, but you wouldn’t know it from the way they’ve captured the minds of fiction. Even with the safe search kept deliberately on, the results are clearly more TV drama and pornography than anything that approaches helpful. The links are to television forums, tabloids, clickbait journalism. A sample of images highlights plush lips, round wet eyes, and small, nymph-like bodies. He doesn’t have to picture Suga to know none of it is real, but he can’t help but think of Suga’s sturdy legs and strong, setter’s arms, or the hard angles of his shoulder blades. 

> Search: my best friend is an omega

The results edge away from television and step into the softly pornographic.

Daichi grits his teeth. 

The internet is mocking him. 

> Search: human biology for dummies 

It’s a place to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The other shoe drops. We all knew it would, right?  
> Despite the predictability (it's a TROPE, okay, I am allowed!), I hope I put on enough of a spin to keep it interesting.  
> Please let me know what you think! (Author feeds on comments, u know how it is)


	3. Chapter 3

The weather finally succeeds at chasing them indoors for lunch, so the four of them huddle around Kiyoko's desk and watch leaves bluster past the windows. This time, in the days leading up to his heat, Suga stays vigilant to note the signs. Hungrier, touchier, needier - and  _ tired. _ He said he wanted to practice, so he could play in any condition. He still wants that. He just didn't account for how  _ tired _ he feels. 

Nothing a bit of training can't fix. 

"Hey Daichi," he says casually, "You free next week?" 

Daichi mutters a distracted, "Yeah," and barely lifts his eyes from the notebook in his lap. 

"Cool." Suga very, very carefully keeps his tone the same as before. "Let's practice." 

Daichi's head shoots up.  _ "Yeah?"  _

Suga holds his breath. 

_ We're not pro athletes- _

_ I've always cared about this stuff- _

The same stupid, illogical worry worms itself back out into the open:

_ He thinks less of you. _

But Daichi just asks, "What day?" 

Suga blinks back to himself. He huffs at himself derisively, takes a moment, and gives Daichi an estimation. They work out the details, but can only fit in two nights of practice. It's nowhere near enough. He wants his time back. He wants it back  _ now.  _ He won't be laid up once a month, he will not be held captive by his own body, and the only way to achieve it is to practice. 

But even two extra nights puts Daichi at six straight nights of practice, and that's so much more than a growing body should have to endure. Twice will simply half to do. They'll make the most of it. 

The week passes too quickly and too slowly all at once. School is... doable. The harsh fluorescent lights whine loudly in his ears, but it's the smell that really gets to him. A hundred unfamiliar people and he cannot help but categorize them all. Alpha. Null. Omega. Alpha. Alpha. One moment he swears he's taking notes and the next he finds himself puzzling out whether the girl who sits in front of him is null or an omega very far from her heat. 

Without thinking, he knows the boy sitting behind him is an alpha. It itches in the back of his awareness the same way his skin itched that first time, covered in sweat and unnamed want. The scent washes over him. He rests his head on his desk and breathes through his mouth. An animal paces impatiently in his skin. He feels like a tiger caged and going hungry.

He makes himself get used to it. 

He may know logically that heat heightens the senses, but knowing and experiencing are not the same. So  _ many _ things are not the same. 

The day still drags. Only at lunch can he finally relax, surrounded by his friends with Daichi to his right and Asahi at his left and Kiyoko-- 

Isn't there. Daichi must have told her. She's alpha, after all. 

His neck aches from craning against his desk, his shoulders a knot of tension. He is aware of every inch of himself, every inhale, every shift, senses stretching tight across his skin. It chafes. It's uncomfortable. But. But he could  _ use _ this, if he could just think through it. If he could just. If he could  _ just. _

"Daichi." Suga sets his lunch aside and slips onto the classroom floor, linoleum cool on his overheated forehead. "Help me stretch." 

It's testament to how worn out he must look that he complies without a word. Daichi pushes on his back and Suga slowly bends forward, bends, bends until his chest is flat on the floor, and the animal settles happily in his gut. He likes- this. Touching. Always has, but this is different. _ Like _ and  _ want _ don't cover it. He can recite terms like 'oxytocin levels' and wax on about 'vestigial pack bonding' until he talks himself hoarse, but it all pales compared to what it's like to live it and the soothing, steady pressure of Daichi's hands on his back.

"Thanks.”

Sitting through class like this was difficult, distracting, an exercise in patience, but the clubroom is- Well. 

It's the middle of the week, a day off from regular practice, but the clubroom still reeks of laundry and old sweat before he even gets a hand on the door. He holds his breath, hefts his gym bag over his shoulder, and reminds himself that professional athletes - the few omegas who make it pro - do this on the regular. College athletes do it too - more often, even, since universities are so much freer with their money than the sponsorship-driven market of professional sports. And the Karasuno volleyball club has to be at least as good as they are - better, if they want to not only reach Nationals but to win. 

Suga opens the door, grits his teeth, and goes to get changed.

His fingers fumble with the buttons. Suga shuts his eyes and wills his hands to still but with his eyes closed the room grows sharper, closer, and he smells- smells Tashiro- smells alpha-  _ fuck. _

He tears through the buttons and throws his uniform on the floor, careless, hardly thinks more than two seconds ahead. It feels good to get his clothes off, even if the room turns his bare skin into nothing but open nerves, even if dragging fabric over them is a sort of sweet and unwitting torture. Trembling again, he goes for his belt. 

This is  _ ridiculous. _

That morning sensitivity woke with him and followed him throughout the day. The lights are too bright, his teachers too loud, the world almost too much but emphasis on  _ almost.  _ He pushed through it, got used to it- is getting used to it, but he- this-

There's no way he can get used to  _ this. _

He never wanted Captain Tashiro before and he does not want him now, but  _ alpha  _ permeates this room and the air and when he breathes it permeates  _ him. _ His knees give. Suga lands beside his gym bag, bending forward if only to stop himself from collapsing completely. He digs a hand against the outside of his boxers, whimpers and wants and curses his body and- 

He can do this. He has to do this. His father does this every month, and Suga might be young and his heat may be new but he knows he can do it too. 

He gives himself a moment more to find his composure, keeps his eyes open and tries breathing shallow through his mouth. That... that's not ideal, but his head clears. A little. Maybe. By the time he manages to finish changing, his hands stop trembling and he almost figures out how to breath.  _ Alpha _ lingers in the air and on his tongue, like the aftertaste of some foreign and too-sweet candy, so cloying he wants at once to gag and swallow it down and gag again. It is so strange, almost invasive but not  _ quite,  _ that even once he calms himself he cannot help but prod at it like a sore in his mouth. 

He can do this. 

Compared to the clubroom, the gymnasium is a breath of fresh air. Alpha pheromones linger in the air, but muddled with fresh wax and rubber and sweat. He can pick Tashiro out without meaning, and Kurokawa too. He freezes in the doorway, a cool sweep of autumn air following him inside. 

"Dai," he calls into the empty gym, unwilling to go inside, "You here?"

Daichi emerges from the supply closet pushing a cart of volleyballs. "Hey, Suga." There's a tentative note to his greeting that Suga pretends he doesn't hear.

He slides the door shut behind him. "Hey." 

The cart of balls squeaks into position. It's strangely quiet without the rest of the team. Strangely intimate without the rest of their friends, or the din of a lunch crowd. 

Suga looks down at his hands. They're shaking. He sucks in a breath to steady himself and fuck,  _ fuck,  _ he can still smell it, muddled by fresh floor wax and rubber volleyballs and something like cleaning solution, along with the other teams and classes who use this space, but still enough that his breath shakes on the exhale.

"You good?" Daichi takes a step forward, puts a hand on his shoulder; he flinches, but instead of flinching away he flinches closer, into his arms, and lets himself shake. Because it's Daichi. Daichi, who agreed to practice with him and brought him noodles and who is as stupidly devoted to volleyball as he is. Daichi, who smells like absolutely nothing at all. 

And isn't that wonderful? 

He buries his face in Daichi's neck and inhales deeply for the first time since stepping into the clubroom. To say Daichi smells like nothing is not entirely the truth; he smells like skin and sweat and surely something unique to him, but without the pheremones that made their clubroom feel so overwhelming and the gym feel so loud. 

Suga gives himself another moment to compose himself, to wipe the glassy look from his eye and replace it with sharp and assessing and ready to play. He  _ can  _ do this. It will be easy. He has Daichi.

"Okay, Daichi. Ready to hit some spikes for me?"

* * *

They only get that one week of extra practice in before Suga is itching to jump back in. Captain Takahiro must know that Suga's in heat. Kurokawa probably knows it too. But Suga says nothing about it all through practice, so Daichi follows his lead. 

The prefectural tournament is just around the corner. Tension runs high, hope not far behind; they've worked hard, they've worked  _ smart, _ and heat or no heat, their team has a chance. They can feel it. Even after practice wraps, anxious anticipation hovers low and oppressive over everyone, himself included. 

"Let's hit up Sakanoshita's for some food," says Takahiro, first to finish dressing. Suga keeps fumbling with his buttons. Daichi pretends not to notice, but he does notice, and would it really be so weird if he offered to help?

Jesus, Sawamura. Yeah. Yeah, that would be fucking weird. Get a grip. 

"Sounds like a plan," he says, tearing his eyes away. 

Presenting as omega doesn't change who Suga is or how he acts, not really. So for the most part Daichi goes whole weeks forgetting about heats completely, forgetting Suga is an omega, heroically forgetting things have shifted, near imperceptibly, between them. 

Suga has  _ not _ changed. But something has. Daichi has. He notices things now, more than he used to. 

Like the way Suga bumps against him on their walk to the convenience store. Their shoulders brush whenever their strides fall out of sync, each glancing touch a shock of tactile awareness that cuts through his internal commentary and hooks him, kicking, back into the moment, so far as the moment extends to Suga radiating heat beside him. The damning thing is that the touching isn't even new, really. Suga was a tactile person even before his first heat, quick with a hug and quick with a friendly jab. That hasn't changed, except for maybe the frequency, and maybe, maybe Suga lingers just a little longer when they touch. Maybe. Probably, he's imagining it, because he- 

He, what, wants Suga to linger? 

So, yeah, Suga hasn't really changed. But Daichi's awareness of him - oh, that's definitely new.

"...advantage." Daichi tunes in just in time to catch the tail of whatever Suga's saying to the captain and vice captain - alpha and omega, respectively. He never thought much of it before, beyond a passing awareness, and a blip of concern whenever Kurokawa missed a day of practice. 

"You can smell all that?" Kurokawa asks. 

Suga tilts his head, so their shoulders brush again. "Can't you?" 

"...No."

Daichi puts the pieces together, realizes pretty quickly that they're talking about practice, they're talking about the fact that Suga is definitely, maybe? in heat. Daichi didn't track it… exactly. But they're friends, probably best friends? So it's not weird that he counted the days. And unless his count is off - unless Daichi misinterpreted the way Suga's fingers shook over his buttons and the careful way he breathed - Suga is in heat, or at least very close to it.

Captain Takahiro whistles, pulling Daichi's attention back to the conversation (back to the warmth radiating off Suga, still beside him). 

"That's real damn impressive! You actually sense the whole court like that?" 

"Not the whole court!" Suga shrugs, and Daichi thinks, shit,  _ forget _ modesty. Sensing even a fraction of the court? That's the kind of instinct pros spend their whole careers honing. That's  _ superhuman. _

"You're the easiest to place," Suga says to the captain. That makes sense, Daichi thinks. Takahiro is an alpha, the kind of person omegas are keyed to pick out from a crowd. 

(It makes sense, but it doesn't sit well, skirts too close to the kind of blanket assumptions Daichi is doing his damnedest to avoid.  _ Because he's alpha and Suga is omega _ feels too much like- Essentialism. Biological determinism. It rides too close to outright sexism.) 

"Kurokawa too," Suga goes on, unbothered but speaking slowly, like he's given it great thought. Kurokawa makes sense too, since he's a fellow omega, not to mention the one who helped Suga the most, that terrifying moment when Suga fainted in the gym.

"I'm having a hard time placing the nulls, but," and before Daichi can think again,  _ that makes sense, _ Suga shakes him by the bicep, "I always know where Daichi is, because he helped me practice, so with a bit more work, yeah, I'll sense the whole court just by breathing. If I'm playing and in heat, anyway." He grins, first at him and then at the captain. His stomach flips and his brain sticks on his smile so that he barely even realizes they're in the convenience store until cigarette smoke assaults his nose and Daichi regains the ability to process more than Suga's proud grin. 

Kurokawa covers his nose in his jacket, followed by a much less subtle Suga cupping a hand over the bottom half of his face. The smoke is bad enough to Daichi; he can only imagine how overpowering it would be with his senses heightened and opened wide. 

The store clerk looks at them, a familiar guy with a bleach job and piercings. He scans their group once, then lands on Suga. Sighs, and puts out his cigarette. "Welcome to Sakanoshita," he drones, and Daichi is just about to decide if that boredom is faked or real when Suga buries his face against his shoulder, and then he can't really think of anything at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried not to make this chapter too info-dumpy and still give a decent outline of how I decided heats work in my fic, but I still feel like I could have included more? Idk man. I already added like half a scene to help on that front. Lmk what you think.


	4. Chapter 4

**YEAR 2**

* * *

Okay, so Daichi tracks Suga’s heats.

By the time they enter their second year, Suga no longer needs the extra practice. He plays as well in heat as he does out of it. Hell, he might play _better._ Suga described it to him once, the nearly preternatural awareness of everyone on the court, all this extra sensory information he’s become a master at understanding, at _using._

So there’s no real _need_ to keep tracking them, really, but he keeps it up. It’s part habit, but mostly because, well, he just likes to _know._ Daichi can't smell it like an alpha can, or even an omega, and if Captain Kurokawa gets to know just by scenting the air, Daichi figures he should know too. So he keeps track. It’s not weird. It’s _not._

Which is why he knows that on their first practice of the year, Suga is in the peak of heat. He doesn't look it, grinning and making jabs at Asah, who makes a good show of dodging. But anyone for whom it matters - anyone not Asahi or Daichi and the other, oblivious nulls - can smell it.

They're still waiting for people to arrive. Kurokawa - now gone from vice captain into natural captainship - talks quietly with Kiyoko. They’re a good match, as far as manager and captain go. Better than her and Tashiro, who was so loud to her natural cool. Occasionally they glance at the growing gaggle of first years hovering awkwardly in the gym, but mostly they stick to leafing through a surprisingly modest stack of papers. Club applications, probably. None of the gathered first years spare Suga a second glance, so they're probably null, or maybe just too wrapped up in their own heads. A sympathetic pang of butterflies stirs in his gut before Daichi reminds himself that he's already a second year, and vice captain. He doesn't know what he would have done that first year without Asahi and Suga on the same ride. Especially Suga, and the nights they spent fervently reading anything that might improve their team. They haven't made it to nationals yet, and it hurts. Last year left a bitter taste, but. _But._ They're close. He can sense it.

"...promise, Asahi, no first year wing spiker has a _hope_ of replacing you but if you keep up this attitude..." 

Ah, so that's why Asahi was dodging Suga's jabs.

"You don't know that! If someone _is_ better, if it will get us to nationals, then..." 

"Then we'll adjust accordingly." Suga rolls his eyes, catching Daichi's gaze just as he joins their corner of the gym. "Dai, tell Asahi-"

"That he needs some confidence if he's going to stay our best spiker? Yeah, we've been over that."

Asahi covers his face. Suga and Daichi laugh.

"How are the hopefuls?" Suga asks, flicking his gaze over to the shifting gaggle of first years, like the volleyball club has the clout to call them hopefuls and not desperately needed bodies. A third guy joined the pair of first years in the time Daichi's back was turned. He's tall and a little wiry, like he's yet to grow into his height, but he has a pair of strong, spiker's shoulders, along with a scruff of bleached hair. He catches Daichi looking and grins with so much deliberate machismo that it gives him a headache and makes him want to laugh all at once. But laughing would be a bit too cruel, especially considering he was in that same mindset just last year, hopefully minus the machismo, so he simply settles on letting his gaze drift away.

"We'll see."

"I'm just glad we have applications at all." Asahi sizes up the group with a sideways glance. "Blond guy looks like he can spike." 

"Mm," Daichi agrees, because there's not much else to say until everyone arrives and they can see what these kids are like for real. "Anyway, I didn't come over here to speculate."

The three of them lapse into silence. It's not _necessarily_ uncomfortable, but. Well. Maybe those first years' nerves got to him a little more than he thought.

"Suga..." Daichi rubs at the back of his neck, realizes what he's doing, and makes himself drop his hand. "How, uh, how is your- Everything good?"

Suga tilts his head expectantly. 

Daichi sighs. He has the distinct impression Suga is toying with him. He takes a particularly childish glee in watching him fumble around, especially because Suga's own approach is so devastatingly frank it would border on the obscene if not for the way Suga shrugged it all off. "I _mean,_ aren't you in heat? Is that going to be okay?" 

_"Oh!"_ He says, with so much surprise Daichi spends half a moment wondering if Suga wasn't actually toying with him at all, until Suga tilts his head back and laughs. For the first time, he notices a thin sheen of sweat covering the expanse of his neck, seeping into his collar. If he was an alpha, would he smell it? 

Daichi makes himself stop looking. 

"Yeah, Daichi, _I'm_ fine. The captain and I talked it over." He juts his head toward the first years. "It works out. They'll have to get used to it at some point." Suga licks his lips and grins. "Trial by fire, right?"

He doesn't know what to say to that, in no small part because Suga licked his lips like that and Daichi's still stuck on that picture like a skipping slideshow of _unplatonic things to notice about your best friend._ Not that it's a new phenomenon. Just- fuck. Fuck.

Fortunately, Captain Kurokawa chooses that moment to call him over. They spend the rest of their time before practice starts going over that season's logistics, leaving him no time to examine his reaction in any further detail.

When it's time, they're still missing someone, at least by the number of applications they have on hand, but they don't want to start a bad precedent by waiting around for latecomers, so they have the first years line up and announce their preferred position. Some of them don't have a preference, which is actually a good thing. Karasuno is in desperate need of a few utility players. With a team their size, not everyone can afford to specialize. The guy with bleached hair is a spiker after all. Tanaka Ryuunosuke. He presents the sort of nervous bravado that speaks to a stubborn streak, or at least that's what Daichi guesses. It could be trouble, but properly applied, stubborn isn't always bad. Just look at Sugawara, persistent to his core.

The missing player arrives in a cacophony of skidding footsteps, heralding the heavy metal door slamming open with a clang. Nishinoya Yuu tumbles into the gymnasium with a genuinely impressive, libero-perfect summersault - and freezes so fast Daichi is left to wonder if that moment of grace happened at all. Still, it's an entrance so large and loud he could almost overlook the fact that this new player doesn't even stand 160 centimeters tall. The entire gymnasium stares. 

Nishinoya Yuu falls on his ass.

A single loud bark breaks back into the silence, a kind of laughter that from Suga is very much like a challenge. Nishinoya's head snaps to the side, locking onto Suga and staying with a gaze so intense even Daichi feels it. He licks his lips, and his mouth stays open, almost as if he's- 

It clicks. He's alpha. Nishinoya is short and trim, definitely a build meant for liberos, and absolutely nothing like the kind of build meant for alphas, at least not the kind Daichi is used to seeing on TV. But then, neither was their old captain Tashiro, and Suga hardly fits the stereotypes either. And man, does this little guy have _presence._ Yeah, okay, he can see it. An alpha. But big deal. 

Daichi makes a decision. He breaks from Kurokawa's side and offers his hand to help Nishinoya up, which he takes without pause. Probably a good sign. "Welcome to Karasuno Volleyball Club," he says, finally drawing Nishinoya's attention back to him. It's a little unnerving, but Daichi simply smiles back. His smile shows a lot of teeth. "Enjoy your trial by fire." 

* * *

Barely a month later and fall has well and truly arrived, with cool, early nights and windy, bitter afternoons. Fewer and fewer students take their lunch in the courtyard, but if you sit in the sun it's just warm enough to _almost_ call it comfortable. The four of them - himself, Daichi, Asahi and Kiyoko - have settled beneath the largest tree in the courtyard. It's quiet, sunlight gleaming through what leaves remain clinging to their branches. Nishinoya and Tanaka have yet to find and pester him into setting for the rest of lunch, so Suga is almost tempted to call the moment peaceful.

"Oh, Daichi," Suga starts, setting his lunchbox in his lap. "I can't make our study night this Friday." 

Daichi frowns, a bit more put out than he anticipated. It's... kind of nice? Warmth stirs in his chest and creeps across his face. Suga would blame it on his upcoming heat, but he knows better. Daichi's disappointment is encouragement Suga _so_ does not need. 

He likes it anyway. 

"Okay… How come?"

Suga is _not_ embarrassed. He does not get embarrassed about heats; he can’t avoid them, so what’s the point? No one can avoid heats. Either you’re an omega and you live through it or you know someone who is, and you live through it anyway. Getting embarrassed is a waste of time. He doesn’t want to waste time, especially not time spent with Daichi.

And that's the damn _problem,_ isn't it? Heats don't embarrass him in the slightest, but all his cool goes out the window when it comes to Sawamura Daichi.

"I'll be in heat." He explains without embellishment. He _could_ explain it more, but he won't. To emphasize how not-embarrassed he is, Suga takes another, deliberate bite of rice. He does not blush. 

Daichi rolls his eyes.

"I know _that._ I rented some movies, thought we could do that instead..."

Something must show on Suga’s face, because Daichi snaps his mouth shut. An answering blush creeps across his cheeks. 

Hm. 

"Suga?" 

"You... know?" 

Daichi looks out the window, casual, like something outside caught his interest. "I... they're pretty regular?" 

"I mean they are, but-" 

But Daichi keeps _track?_

"I'm being weird again, aren't I?"

"No, no, it's not weird! It's totally normal to track family members' heats." Daichi isn't family, but if that occurs to Daichi, there's no hint of it in the smile tentatively spreading on his face. Besides, they're teammates, and that's close enough. "It's _sweet._ Very thoughtful. Thank you." 

"So, we're on for movie night?"

"You bet." His voice takes on an impish tone. "I'm going to be cuddly though. Fair warning."

His tentative smile bursts into a grin. "You mean more than usual?"

Suga flicks a pickled plumb at his face. He bats it aside and Asahi _squawks_ as it hits him, leaving a vinegary splotch glancing off his cheek. They all burst into laughter. Even Kiyoko laughs, a hand over her mouth, because she is nothing if not polite. 

Part of him, the omega only days out from heat, takes notice. She is an objectively beautiful, kind, lovely alpha, sitting prim right in front of him, laughing in a way anyone would call musical. His heat lurks just around the corner. Of _course_ he notices. It would be weirder if he didn’t. 

Daichi's thrown his head back, eyes shut to the sun, grinning broad and shaking with laughter. Sunlight glints off his hair, highlights and shadows the length of his throat, the bob of his adam's apple. His eyes crinkle shut in the corners. It's radiant. 

He cannot help but look at Kiyoko, a beautiful alpha who lights up the room, but Daichi truly captures him. Suga warms all over, like his laughter is a patch of sun in autumn. He could curl up here forever.

 _I like him,_ he thinks, aiming a second plumb square into his forehead. Daichi blinks, looks down, and Suga is so caught in the warmth of his smile that he doesn't see the brussel sprout hurtling toward him until it glances off his head and rolls off into the grass. 

"Okay, it's on." 

_I like him._

Darting forward with his chopsticks, Suga steals a sprout from Daichi's lunch and throws it without aiming. It hits him right on the mouth. 

_I’m going to do something about it._

* * *

  
  


Noya breaks into a roll after the volleyball, tumbling once only to land with his hands positioned perfectly, the width of his fingers between the ball and the ground enough to keep the ball in play. It looks just as impressive as the first time he watched Noya dig one of Asahi's spike- 

Well, except that this one glances off his hand into his face. 

"Ow," Noya says, spitting blood, at the same time Asahi shouts "Oh my god!" 

Daichi goes for the first aid kit. By the time he turns back to face them, Suga is already at Noya's side, offering his hand. Noya just blinks at him. In Daichi’s last year of middle school, their libero lost a tooth after missing a dig in pretty much the exact same way, but from this angle, he sees it's just a split lip, and relaxes. 

Then he clocks the way Noya is just kind of blinking and bleeding, and wonders if he hit his head. Daichi jogs over with the first aid kit and a towel for his mouth.

Up close, Daichi notices a few other things, like how Noya still hasn't taken his eyes off Suga, and that Suga is actually very, very still. 

"I am _so_ sorry," Asahi frets, unaware, which answers that question. 

Oh, _honestly?_

"Hey!" he says loudly, mostly to get Noya's attention. Suga unfreezes. "Quit scenting the air and close your mouth, would you? You're bleeding." 

That snaps some focus into Noya's eyes. "I am not _scenting-"_

Recovered, Suga brushes his nose so pointedly that Noya snaps his mouth shut. He deflates, pads gently, thoughtfully, at his body, at his neck. "Huh." He licks his lips. _"Huh."_

Daichi resists the urge to hit _himself_ in the face. 

"Really, Noya?" 

"Shouldn't you, uh, keep track of that?" Asahi asks.

Noya shrinks. "They're not regular, so..."

It makes a certain sense. Noya is small by anyone's standards. Not unhealthily small. He's just compact. It's a good size for a libero. He weaves through players on the court, drops low in an instant and sends the ball back flying before the other team can even process his quick little form. But he's _excruciatingly_ small, by alpha standards. Even he knows that. 

The thought of being snuck up on by a rut is utterly forgein. Daichi keeps track of Suga's heats just fine. Not because they're his, or because he pays them any special attention... they're just, super regular, and Suga is his friend, so. He keeps track. 

Why doesn't he track Noya's? They're teammates too- 

(He knows why. He absolutely knows why.)

"Hey, Daichi, it's not that bad!" 

"What?" 

"You made a face like you just drank spoiled milk!" 

"I was just-! It seems so _inconvenient."_

Noya _actually_ simmers down after that, and practice continues on with only the normal amount of rambunctious interruption. 

They're almost through with the cooldown when Asahi drifts from the group, pulling captain Kurokawa with him. Daichi twists his waist into another stretch, right leg over left knee, and if it happens he faces Asahi and the captain...Well. It's only because he _cares,_ okay?

"...family comes first." He catches the end of Kurokawa's response. He speaks in that low, clean tone which means he's refraining from saying too much while he thinks something over. Kurokawa is a quiet, thoughtful captain. It's not how Daichi might lead, but it's effective, because when Kurokawa talks, everyone listens.

Unfortunately, Nishinoya was listening too. "You can't miss a whole week of practice, Asahi!" He springs from the floor and stops short of Asahi before Daichi even has the time to blink. 

_A week of practice?_

That catches everyone's attention. Daichi sighs, and stands up. This is becoming a bit of a scene. Noya turns his full intensity on Asahi, who already seems to shrink beneath it. If there was a loving form of harassment, Noya managed it. Asahi shrinks another full size. Daichi sighs again and stands beside him. 

Suga apparently had the same idea, except he stands beside Noya instead. He suddenly, viscerally remembers each time Suga affectionately chopped him in the side and thinks, _Oh no._

"What's this about missing a week of practice?" He speaks up before Suga can unleash himself on the lot of them. 

Asahi startles. Daichi can't tell if he looks thankful for his support, or somehow betrayed that he even dared to repeat the news. 

"My folks have this agricultural thing out of town, some kind of small business thing? It's in two weeks and we gotta finish harvesting by then so they'll have all the right information..." he trails off, pulls at a loose strand of his hair. Noya tracks the movement. "I'll probably miss a few days of school too. Someone has to do the small stuff while they prepare... It's only once a year but it's pretty important?"

Vaguely, Daichi remembers Asahi mentioning he didn't plan on university after graduation, but had his eye on some trade school. Was it agriculture? It must have been.

"Sounds stressful," not to mention completely unavoidable. Asahi makes a distressed noise of agreement. 

"So get more help?" Noya offers. 

"We already got all the hands we can afford." 

Daichi catches on. "We don't need to be paid." 

"We just need our best spiker!" 

Asahi shifts under such deliberate praise. "Can you even do farmwork?" 

A round of affirmatives. Kurokawa looks more relaxed than a moment ago. He might even be smiling. "I have cram school on our off days, but this is good. If you miss, then we'll play doubles. Don't worry." 

"You guys." Asahi grins. He looks more relaxed than he has all practice. 

"Don't mention it, man. It's like Noya said, we just need our best spiker." Daichi likes the outdoors, and he’s good at taking directions. If they just need hands, then he can manage that.

"Right... right." A moment passes in silence, the four of them grinning at Asahi as his face slowly turns a ruddy brown. 

"Just to warn you, I guess, my cousin is helping and she's… I mean her parents are a bit more…" He glances at Noya, Suga, then at the ceiling. "Traditional?" He sounds nervous, but different-nervous, nervous in a way Daichi can't place. 

Somehow, Noya places it immediately. "What, 'cuz I'm in rut?"

Asahi nods. 

Noya rolls his eyes. "But you're _null._ Why's it matter?"

"Yeah, but," he looks at Suga and doesn't finish his sentence. 

Daichi infers the rest. "No way that's a thing." _Noya_ and _Suga?_ It's laughable. Funny, right? Definitely funny. 

_"We_ know that," Asahi agrees. The feeling in his stomach calms, a little. Maybe. He can't tell. 

"Sounds like their problem." Suga steps forward, speaking for the first time the whole exchange. He smiles, but it doesn't match his pointed tone. Suga doesn't mention that he'll be in heat too. Daichi doesn't either. 

"I guess so." 

Suga smiles a little sharper, like he has something to prove. 

"Cool." Daichi says, thankful to find he sounds completely normal, despite the burst of what he suspects was _jealousy._ "Sounds great." 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day late, but hey, this chapter is a long one!
> 
> This chapter is why we have the "Implied/Referenced Underage Sex" tag. If you need, check the bottom notes for more spoilery details.

_ I'm being ridiculous, _ Daichi thinks to himself, even as he hauls extra blankets out and dumps them on his bed just a few hours before Suga is supposed to show for movies. Laying awake last night, he remembered something he read in a weird corner of the internet, back when Suga first presented and Daichi was desperate for any information that made him feel even a little less dense, a little less useless. It didn't stick in his memory the way other things did; it wasn't reinforced every time he turned on the television, and it isn't the sort of thing he had opportunity to see himself. 

Late last night, awake in a fit of nerves he doesn’t examine too closely, Daichi remembered: Omegas like to nest?

Not every omega and not all the time. For the ones who do, the instinct only shows up around heats; it's supposed to make them feel secure. To say he  _ gets it _ is an overstatement. But Daichi loves the sound of rain on a tin roof, heard from indoors where he is dry and content with the surety that he is safe from the storm. He figures it must be a bit like that. 

But even if Suga isn't the kind of omega who wraps himself in blankets, or if the thing he read turns out to be bullshit? Then he just put out some extra blankets, no big deal and no reason to mention it. 

And if it  _ is _ real, then he did something to make Suga comfortable, which is all he really wants and ever wanted.

Hours later find Suga wrapped in the blankets Daichi set out for him that morning and settles at the foot of his bed, back to the wall so he can face his small, barely-used television. Daichi pretends not to notice that Suga absorbed all his pillows as well. Okay, so maybe the nest thing is a little strange - but what does he care? Suga just looks so  _ content.  _

Daichi catches the lights on the way to his bed, swapping the bright overheads for his soft yellow lamp. 

"You look comfortable,” he says, sounding about as pleased with himself as he feels. 

"Mm, I am," Suga replies absently, which Daichi takes as the perfect opportunity to snag back a pillow. 

"Hey-!" 

"Just one, just one!" 

Daichi settles at the other end of his bed, shoving the pillow behind him for support. Almost as soon as he does, the nest of blankets rearranges itself.  _ I'm going to be cuddly, _ Suga warned him, and he does so without a blip of self-consciousness about him. They spend the night like that, Suga leaning on his shoulder, Suga tucked against him, sliding down with the sun. By the time light stops filtering through his window, Suga has his head in his lap. 

And yes, Suga has always been free with his affection, especially while in heat, but they've never been quite this close. 

Daichi sort of wants to kiss him.

"Hey Daichi." 

"Hm?" 

Suga smiles slow, almost lazy, a smile that strikes its own sort of heat in Daichi’s gut. "What?"

"Dai," Suga draws out his name into a teasing lilt, "Did you put all these blankets out for me?" 

"Uhm." He rubs at the back of his neck, if only to keep his hand out of Suga's hair. "I... Yeah? I thought you might, I mean. I wanted you to be comfortable." 

"You're sweet." 

Suga sits up slow, blankets falling around his waist as he reaches up to stretch, shirt pulling along with the movement. The movie is almost over now, and Daichi thinks this must be the end of their night. They'll fold the blankets and put his pillows back and maybe work on a bit of homework after all, because they don't want to part just yet. 

But instead Suga balances on his knees and leans in close, leans down, bending deliberately to talk into his ear. "You're so sweet."

Daichi jerks, fighting down a shudder as he twists his head to get Suga back in his sight. He didn't think it through. Now their faces are so close that Suga's breath ghosts over his lips. His lips, slightly parted, slightly swollen and shiny in the dim lamplight like Suga had bitten them raw. 

He stares. Daichi knows he stares. But they're so  _ close, _ his bedroom narrowed to the slim space between them and he cannot possibly look away.

The thing is, Suga doesn't either. They stay like that, kneeling awkwardly on his bed, for several suspended moments. He thinks, deliriously,  _ Maybe Suga wants me to kiss him. _

And then Suga breaks away. He climbs off the bed with a yawn, stretching his arms above him and this time Daichi absolutely does not look at the sliver of hipbone and stomach that movement reveals. 

"Thank you for the movie night," Suga says casually, so different from the low, whispered  _ You're so sweet _ that he can't even form a response before Suga goes on. "And for the blankets." Suga bends down to pick some up from where they landed on the floor, and begins to fold. After a moment, Daichi joins. Behind them, the credits roll. The evening ends. He walks Suga to the door, keeping up conversation with half a mind, the rest remembering his lips and his warmth and the low way he whispered,  _ So sweet. _

"I almost forgot-" Suga whirls in the open doorway, steps into his space and kisses him. For a moment Daichi can only stand in the doorway and let himself be kissed, feeling Suga warm in his personal space as natural as it'd been with his head on his shoulder in the dark, not like an invasion but an extension. 

Then it registers that Suga is  _ kissing him, _ and tries to do it back. He puts a hand on Suga's waist, leans into _ his _ personal space, and tries not to overthink it. Neither of them have kissed before. It takes the pressure off, but he still so badly wants Suga to like kissing him- 

He stops thinking and just lets himself enjoy it. In many ways Suga in his personal space is incredibly familiar, but interrupted by his lips, the answering hand touching his chest like it doesn't know where else to go. 

Daichi can't help himself. He smiles, and Suga slowly pulls away. Is smiling the wrong thing to do? Is it weird? He doesn't want to be weird but he's just so  _ happy- _

Suga smiles back at him. 

"So…" Daichi ventures into the silence, "Did you really almost forget, or was that a line?" 

"Daichi!" Suga pushes his chest before answering. "I was... deciding."

"Hm," he says. Deciding  _ what? _

"You looked like you were going to kiss me, but you didn't." 

Oh. Daichi rubs his face.

"Was I wrong?" 

"No, you were right, I'm just, recovering." He drags his hands away. "That obvious, huh?" 

"I was going to kiss you tonight either way." 

"You- huh?" 

"Yeah, I’ve wanted to since-" Suga shrugs, and if Daichi didn't spend the past year of his life helping Suga practice after hours, he might have mistook the feigned nonchalance for something real. "You've been a very good friend to me."

"Friend," Daichi repeats. 

"Well-" 

"Are we dating now?"

He has to be sure, sure if Suga really likes him this way or if it's just, he doesn't know, an extension of his heat? Another way Suga reached out to satisfy his drive for  _ closeness? _

It doesn't feel like that's what it was. But he likes having facts. He needs to be sure.

Suga looks at him carefully. "Do you want to be?" 

"Uh,  _ yeah." _

"Good," Suga leans into him again, and for a moment Daichi thinks they'll kiss a second time, but even as the thought occurs to him, Suga sways away. "Me too."

Daichi follows his sway, but Suga puts a finger to his lips, smile twitching at the corners until it's gone from relieved to apologetic. The sliver of light from inside his house casts itself on Suga like a spotlight, so he's the brightest point in the night. His head still tilts imperceptibly to the side, eyes sharp and fixed on him completely, bright and almost animal. 

"A week."

"Huh?" His brain scrambles to catch up but keeps tripping on Suga's  _ eyes. _

"We'll go on a date, in a week." 

_ Why not tomorrow?  _ He almost demands, but doesn't even open his mouth. Of course he knows why. Suga's heat will blow over by then. Is that what he's worried about?

Is it worry?

"Good night, Daichi." 

Without leaving time to hesitate, Daichi pulls Suga into a goodbye hug, puts his face in Suga's neck because Suga so often does the same. He does it now. One more dose of physical contact, though he'd be fooling himself thinking it's only for the benefit of Suga's heat. 

"Okay, okay." Daichi straightens, even though he doesn't want to. "That's out of my system. I'll see you at Asahi’s tomorrow?"

Suga pecks him on the cheek. "Tomorrow."

* * *

The Azumanes' family home looks like it sprung fully-formed from a history book; its classic kawara roofing catches the rising sun, reflecting orange so brightly Suga can’t even look for very long. Long engawa walkways connect the main building to two smaller off-shoots, which, in fairness, don't look as though they've seen much use in recent years. Their wooden ranma slotting windows have gone the ashy-brown of unkempt wood, shuttered on the right-hand side. A few on the left are open, but from this distance he can't really discern more than that. Beyond the house, to its left, to its right, and even lining the driveway are rows and rows of soybeans. 

God, it's actually kind of gorgeous. Suga had no idea Miyagi even had this kind of architecture other than its few temples and shrines. "Jeez, Asahi," he says, poking him lightly in the ribs, "Your place is enormous."

"Dude, it rocks," Tanaka chimes in, surprisingly awake considering the hour, as he passes them while walking over to an elderly woman Suga doesn't recognize. She hands him a tie-dyed bandana, a hilarious sort of contrast against the rich browns of the Azumane family home. Tanaka wraps it around his head without comment. Better than getting sunscreen in that buzzed hair of his, Suga supposes. 

"Huh?" Asahi blinks at him without understanding; Suga can't really blame him though, considering the sun has yet to even fully rise. 

Of all the things Suga has done for volleyball, this might actually be the strangest. 

_ "Oh, _ the house." He twists to look at it, like he doesn't  _ live _ there. "I kind of forget the other buildings are even there, ever since aunt Natsuko moved into her husband's family home. She and Rin are actually staying on the left right now, but just until this farm business wraps up." Suga doesn't recognize the name Rin, but he thinks he recalls something about an aunt Natsuko.

He spends the rest of his day wondering what it would be like to have aunts and cousins and any extended family at all beyond the grandma who watched him as a kid. The sheer difficulty of imagining this keeps him occupied while he does whatever the experienced farmhands need from him, mostly fetching tools from the (also very large!) storage barn; and so, the day passes quickly. 

When the sun finally sets - low enough that the sky is a faint blue, but enough light left to see by - they decide to top off their day of work with a bonfire. Semi-planned, or maybe just hoped for; Nishinoya and Tanaka brought snacks. Ennoshita even brought drinks. It's  _ almost _ a party. 

He spots Daichi already at the fire, a bag of something that looks like potato chips resting against his leg.  _ We kissed,  _ he thinks. It strikes him at odd intervals: Sometimes prompted, sometimes not, and this one inspired by the color of Daichi's hair in the firelight, flickering radiant between bright orange and deep black, a soft brush of shadow against the indigo sky growing darker. 

Suga pulls over one of the empty plastic crates they're using as chairs and takes his spot next to Daichi like he belongs there, because he does. They're dating now; and truthfully, it hasn't processed. Something changed in name but sitting beside Daichi, surrounded by their friends, it feels as though nothing has changed at all. Maybe that's the truth; maybe they've been together since Suga asked,  _ ‘Will you help me practice?’ _ and Daichi said,  _ ‘Of course.’ _

He doesn't realize how  _ sore _ he is until he stops moving for the day. It hits him all at once: the ache in his lower back, how the autumn night air still feels too hot, how it scrapes against his skin. Wood smoke invades his senses, almost a blessing for the way it covers other scents completely. Noya's rut followed him throughout the day, a stray whiff in the storage shed, again as he scurried past to retrieve the snacks. Here around the fire it fades away completely. 

"We should add farm work to our endurance training," Suga jokes, earning a snort.

Tanaka and Noya are busy throwing scraps of paper into the fire, receipts and handfuls of grass, just to see how they burn. Asahi hums along to the radio. 

It's a good night. Peaceful. 

Suga snags the last bag of jalapeno veggie fries when Noya isn't looking and starts shoveling them into his mouth as fast as he can manage. 

"You're going to get heartburn," Daichi says.

"I'm seventeen, I won't get heartburn. You're just old."

"We're in the same year and I'm your boyfriend." 

His hand stills in the bag, stomach flipping. "Mm." He grins around another handful of fries, certain he could listen to Daichi call himself  _ your boyfriend  _ on loop and remain perfectly content. 

Noya stops throwing shit in the fire and bee-lines back to his seat. "Hey, what happened to my fries?" 

Oops. 

"Suga!" Noya scrambles around the fire fast enough to be a hazard and lunges for the bag. Suga leaps, holds the bag high above his head and skirts to the other side of the fire. 

_ "Your  _ fries?"

"Yeah, Ryu got the hot ones special!" Noya leaps. Suga sways just out of reach. Daichi watches them, his gaze a warm and pleasant tingle on his back, like fingers brushing his neck. Suddenly Suga cares very little for the bag of chips held above Noya's head.

Someone else is watching, too. 

"Rin!" Asahi exclaims, loud enough that he and Noya turn their heads toward him in unison. 

"Came to see what the ruckus is. And I heard there are s’mores?" She claps her hands in delight. "You have such noisy friends." 

Noya stops grabbing and they turn to look at the newcomer. She looks back, between the pair of them, at Asahi, and back again. The slight tingle of eyes turns into sharp pinpricks, uncomfortable and pinning.  _ Alpha, h _ e realizes, just as Noya goes rigid beside him. The smell of his rut is so common, it hardly registers. No, that's not... true. It registers. It very much  _ registers, _ but he's practiced at ignoring the scent of an alpha's rut, and especially Noya's. It's familiar. Always irritatingly  _ present, _ but no more than that.

He definitely notices it now.

_ She thinks we're a couple. _

It bothers him more than it should. Suga tears his eyes away. Somehow looking at her is like acknowledging what she's thinking, the way she looks at them, smiling,  _ young love _ written all over her face. 

Or maybe that smile conceals disdain. He's in heat, after all.

Suga drops the bag on Noya's head and sits at Daichi's side, lacing their hands together like a refusal. No one else spares Asahi's cousin more than an acknowledging glance. Tanaka sets a s'more on Daichi's knee then goes to roast another. 

And why should they? She hasn't even  _ said _ anything, really. She just looked at him. Them. Him and Noya. She looked at them and saw a couple because, what, Noya is an alpha and he's an omega and there they were standing next to each other?

"Daichi."

"Hm?" 

Suga puts his hand on Daichi's cheek and kisses him.

_ It doesn't matter, _ he thinks, and kisses harder. He's making a point, putting on a show, but as they kiss their audience falls away. He registers only the fire's warmth, and Daichi's warmth, and the warmth at his core. Little tendrils seep out into the rest of him, urge him to kiss harder, press himself against Daichi, crawl into his lap, rub himself on Daichi's neck until their scents are one and the same.

So he does. A hand falls on the small of his back, keeping him balanced as much as it pulls him closer. The tendrils spur into a deep rumble, a noise caught between growl and purr. 

It occurs to him this might be a little indecent.

Suga pulls away, far enough to see Daichi with his eyes still shut, color mottling his cheeks. His lips glint wet in the firelight, kiss-bitten and plush. A light sheen of sweat disappears down the neck of Daichi's jacket. Suga wants to bite him, get his scent in his mouth. 

Great idea, making out with Daichi just to prove a point. The itch in his skin has bloomed into a skittering want, pleased and not nearly satisfied. His whole body burns with it.  _ You did this to yourself, _ he thinks ruefully, but can't make himself regret it. 

"Show-off," Tanaka accuses. 

They acquired an audience. That was the point, but his full-body warmth soothes his desire to laugh in that woman's face, because kissing Daichi is  _ right, _ feels right, satisfies his heat-tinged urge to mark and claim far beyond what he feels for Nishinoya, for any alpha. 

"I'm allowed to kiss my boyfriend."

"We didn't know you were dating!" 

Nishinoya pushes Tanaka. "We kind of did." 

Daichi opens his eyes, still half-lidded, to his immense satisfaction. "That was, uh, that..." 

"Mm," Suga agrees, and carefully, deliberately slides back into his seat.

* * *

"Hey," Daichi says. They're headed to the bus stop as a group, but the pair of them slow until they linger just a bit behind the others. "Are you going to tell me what that was about?"

"What, I can't kiss my boyfriend?" 

"Suga..."

He purses his lips.

"I know that's not what it was about." 

"Then why ask? I had to set the record straight." 

Daichi shuts his mouth, unsure how to phrase the uncomfortable feeling in his chest. The truth is he  _ wanted _ to kiss Suga for that same reason, take him by the shoulders and dip him and kiss him hard by the fire like they were in some kind of bad romantic movie. 

_ It's not like other people won't think that too. What did we prove? _

_ I don't want to be something you have to prove. _

_ I just want to be yours.  _

"Alright." Daichi shakes his head, and lets himself reach for Suga's hand. He wants it as badly without an audience. Maybe even more. "Then does this count as our first date?" 

Suga's answering laugh draws looks from the others, and the moment is simply a microcosm of what it will mean to be with Suga, because Suga is forever attracting attention. How can he not? Suga laughs like a bell, all light and glinting brass. He laughs like a bell and he won't sit silent for anyone's comfort, not even for himself.

"I guess it does!"

"Good, because I'm choosing our next date." 

"Mmm, how about you come to my place? Like, tonight." 

Well, how can he say no to that? 

When they get to Suga's, his parents are in the kitchen. Mrs. Sugawara is at the table, legal documents spread out in front of her, a pained expression on her face; she barely looks up when they enter. 

"Tough case?" Suga says sympathetically, already stepping around his dad to grab drinks from the fridge.

Mrs. Sugawara jerks her head up, then smiles when her eyes land on Daichi, still hovering in the doorway. "Welcome back." 

Suga pours her a glass of iced tea. "Tough case?" he repeats. 

"You could say that." Mrs. Sugawara sets down her pen. "Defense lobbed some last-minute paperwork at me. I'm trying to sift through it." She reminds Daichi of his mom while she was still in nursing school. It's nostalgic. 

"Good luck," Daichi tells her earnestly. She smiles at him, takes a drink of her iced tea, then ducks her head back down in a friendly dismissal. 

On the stairs to Suga's bedroom, he says, "Mom really likes you." 

"I like her too- I mean, she reminds me of my mom."

"Nosy?" 

Daichi laughs.  _ "Busy." _

Sauga shuts his bedroom door behind them. Sodium-orange light filters in from the street outside, but beyond that the room is dark. And Suga looks at him. Suga looks at him the way he looked at him last night, backlit by street lamps, eyes bright and captivating. Daichi licks his lips, uncertain what Suga wants from him and feeling so much like an animal caught staring into headlights. It is decidedly nothing like the bonfire - a kiss from nowhere, shocking him still and pliant, and then distantly kissing back, more instinct than intent.

This he sees from a mile off, Suga's glowing gaze flicking down to his lips and staying, quirking his own lips into a smile. And then Suga kisses him. He's warm, not burning up like that first heat but just- warm. Solid. Good. Warmth seeps into his mouth. He relaxes and the next thing he knows they're on Suga's bed, his back against the headboard, Suga a pinning weight in his lap. Suga wraps his hands around the nape of his neck, tugs his mouth closer, and puts him where he wants him. Daichi is good at giving directions but he finds he's even better at taking them. Suga knows what he wants more than Daichi knows anything at all beyond the soft press of his lips. He wants whatever Suga wants. He just wants to keep kissing him.

Part of him worried it would be difficult, kissing Suga, like learning without guidance. They fumble. Suga's nails scrape on the back of his neck, a kind of almost-pain that sends a shock of  _ something _ through the rest of him, and, wow. Wow. Okay, that's- Nice. Really nice. 

His worry melts away like sugar into water, warm and sweet. It turns out pleasure is a fairly good teacher, if not lacking in subtlety. He doesn't drag his nails over Suga's nape but his fingers do tighten on his hips, and Suga gasps. For a long while they kiss like that without speaking, wrapped in half-darkness, all the more aware of each other for the way he can only catch pieces of Suga's silhouette, when he opens his eyes at all. Yes, it is new and the act unsure, but Suga knows what he wants, or is very good at pretending he does; Daichi does not mind following his lead, never will mind following if it's Suga at the head.

As if hearing this, Suga leans back; his shifting weight  _ does _ something to Daichi, kicks the heat radiating between them from warm to sweltering. In a smooth, breath-taking motion Suga pulls his shirt over his head, all grace and subtlety, lit just enough in the darkness for Daichi to catch the hints of power flexing in his shoulders as he tosses it away. It smells faintly of bonfire smoke; he cannot help but think of the way Suga kissed him at the fire, kissed him just as hard in front of that girl and all their friends as he kisses him now when they're alone, all heat and  _ heat. _ Heat as in the physical thing, heat as in what shaded Suga's cheeks with blush, heat as in what Suga's in right now, as in that omega thing Daichi will never truly understand, not really, not the way an alpha would. 

It never bothered him the way it bothers him in this moment; he and Suga are, fundamentally, different. The first three, four six months of friendship after Suga presented, Daichi did a lot of reading. There's so much more to omegas that just heat; they have their own culture, a host of experiences Daichi could never, ever share. It's not like he ignored the differences, but it only strikes him now how far apart  _ understanding _ and  _ feeling _ really are. 

So no, it never bothered him, even if he's always been  _ aware. _ The omega thing is important, but Suga has never been defined by only one thing. Assuming otherwise would be a mistake. Maybe it suddenly bothers him because they're dating now. That would be pretty damn selfish, wouldn't it? To only care once he has skin in the game? More likely it nags at him because it is the first he's experienced firsthand.  _ Seeing  _ brought home what he already knew, made everything Suga talked about more urgently real. 

"Tell me this is okay."

"Why wouldn't it be?" Suga asks, and the nervous tremble to his voice does more to soothe Daichi's nerves than anything he could have said. Daichi watches Suga's adam's apple bob, not sure if he wants enough light to make out Suga's expression, or leave his face to mystery. He's not sure either option would make the conversation easier. At least in the dark, there's plausible deniability. "You can tell me if this is too fast."

Daichi blinks, gears grinding at the rapid shift. He laughs, the gesture jostling Suga in his lap, which is- Distracting. Good. More laughter, not quite manic but definitely approaching that edge. He  _ forgot _ Suga sitting in his lap, shirtless. Forgot! Too caught up in his head when he could be- be looking and enjoying  _ this-  _

Suga's mouth is shiny-wet and slightly swollen from kissing; even in the dark, his pout is perfectly clear. "I'm not laughing at you," Daichi shakes his head, feeling almost balanced again, like he can have this conversation and they'll both come out the other end. "I'm  _ very _ good with our pace here." He licks his lips, swallows around his constricting throat, lightly trails his fingers up Suga's hips to his waist. Even shirtless, Suga runs so much hotter than him, skin scalding with heat, and with  _ heat. _ He repeats the motion while dragging his thoughts into something coherent, something he could share without tripping and landing with his fist in his mouth. It proves a challenge, half because he barely understands the contents of his own mind, or the source of his anxiety, and part (most) because Suga is sitting, shirtless, impatient in his lap, trying not to show it, which only stokes Daichi's impatience higher. 

He doesn't need to be eloquent, Daichi decides. He just needs to be honest. Suga has watched him shove his fist in his mouth plenty of times. "Asahi's cousin got me thinking-"

"Daichi-" Impatience spills from Suga's mouth, but Daichi cuts him off. 

"Let me finish. Please? You're an omega, and I'm null, and-"

Suga rolls his eyes theatrically.

_ "And,  _ I think we should just, I don't know, acknowledge? I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here. There's only so much I can google about..." He gestures toward Suga, toward his room. 

_ "Google." _

He winces. "A severe disadvantage." 

"But  _ Google, _ Daichi-” __

"I've dug through so much bad omega porn, Suga. Hey, don't laugh at me!" 

Suga's laughter shakes against him in ways that are  _ entirely _ unfair. “You can just  _ ask _ me! I’m an open book with no shame. I promise not to laugh.”

“No you don’t.” 

Suga laughs. “Okay, I don’t. I’ll laugh at you, but I wouldn’t be mad! Not if it’s an earnest question. You know that.” 

He  _ does _ know that, but it’s the principle of the thing. Suga shouldn’t ever have to explain questions Daichi should already know the answer to. "I have a point to this, if you'd let me finish.” 

Suga rolls his eyes.

“I don't know how this works. If there's something you want from me, you have to- I mean, I need you to… tell me. Show me.”

"Okay, but. Dai, how is that different from any other couple?" 

_ You know why, _ he thinks to himself, surprised, still, by the force of his own bitterness. He was so careful to keep that under wraps; he knows, logically, that it's a waste of his energy, energy that could be better spent being attentive and learning and working with what he has. So what if he cannot smell a heat or rut and has to rely on calendar estimation? The subtle language of pheromones is lost on him, but Suga always speaks his mind. There is no  _ point _ to being bitter, no use in longing, and yet. And yet. 

"Not every omega secretly wants an alpha," Suga goes on, almost cutting to the heart of it, but in reverse. It is not that Daichi thinks Suga wants him to be something he is not; rather, Daichi wants to be something he is not, for Suga. "You know me better than that." 

_ I do, _ he takes in a breath to say, but before he can form the words Suga kisses him again. It is the strangest combination of hurt and want, the force behind it both indigation and heat. 

_ You don't have anything to prove, _ he thinks loudly, and wraps his arm more firmly around Suga's waist, pulling him in closer like that might get his thoughts across.  _ You've never had anything to prove, not to me. _ But here he is, making Suga prove himself, forcing Suga into a corner built out of his own insecurity and letting Suga think he made it himself, just by existing as himself, by being his boyfriend while omega. 

He pulls Suga closer still, like if he just holds him close enough it will wring the insecurity out and let it drip away. Encouraged, Suga kisses harder. The fire from before returns full force and then some, sparking and lighting Daichi up like tinder, eating away his insecurity like dry grass. 

Heat seeps into him at every point of contact, the long bare line of Suga's chest, burning hot even through Daichi's shirt. When Suga breaks to breathe that heat stays with him, coats his thoughts with warm honey. It takes a moment for Daichi to register Suga's fingers dancing insistently at the hem of his shirt, and another to interpret that for the silent request it is. Almost without thinking Daichi lifts his arms, but even when his mind catches up it's with a resounding  _ yes. _ His shirt lands on top of Suga's, which only feels appropriate in a way he cannot quite articulate, but goes something like, wherever Suga leads, Daichi will follow. 

His hands fall back to Suga's hips, one arm creeping around his waist again, to give Suga some support. But just as he pulls him close, Suga puts a finger to Daichi's lips, the message clear: Wait. So Daichi waits, and looks up at Suga, half-shadowed, mouth moving like he doesn't know quite how to form his words. 

"...My neck." 

"Your-?" 

"You asked- If there's something I want you to-” Suga laughs once and shakes his head. “We have an erogenous zone." Slowly, but not quite gently, Suga pries Daichi's hand from his waist and guides it to the column of his neck, arranges his fingers so the nails land on the nape, thumb pressed just below his ear. Daichi doesn't have to ask who  _ we _ refers to. “Here.”

Wordless, unable to form words, Daichi strokes his thumb along the spot. Suga shudders, full-bodied; settled in his lap, he feels every tremor, even the slight hitch in Suga's breath. It's gratifying, more gratifying than he knows what to do with, so gratifying it approaches something like awe. "Here," he repeats. 

Suga nods short and sharp, "Yeah. Yes." 

Daichi adjusts so his fingers fall more naturally, eliciting another shudder, this one barely fluttering his eyelashes, but Suga's still in his lap so he feels it just the same. 

When they kiss again it is like all that fire melts, a burst of sweetness across his tongue at Suga's every swallowed gasp. Daichi decides he could do this, just this, lips and tentative tongue, for hours and be content, learn to enjoy courting the coiled heat in his belly and never quite give in. But Suga put his hand on his neck. Suga told him, directed him, gave him a precious piece of guidance that skirted very, very close to the kind of stereotypes he spent so much of his time trying to eschew. So telling him- it's like, it's like trust. Suga bared himself more than he has for anyone else, and Daichi would be a fool to do nothing with what he's given.

Besides, he wants to make Suga feel good. 

Slowly, hesitant but wanting badly to feel certain, Daichi kisses the corner of Suga's mouth, kisses his jaw. He only just got the hang of kissing Suga's mouth, so it's definitely strange, kissing his jaw. It offers no give and no feedback, no lips responding to his. Daichi listens instead, narrowing on every gasp, desperate for anything to tell him this is what Suga wants, what he likes. It's all so  _ new. _ For both of them. They're learning this together; he just has to remember that. 

Suga tilts his head, which Daichi takes as encouragement to keep going, so he kisses just below his earlobe and is rewarded with another full-body shudder. When Suga told him,  _ 'Here,'  _ part of him knew this must be where he meant: The spot where omegas release their pheromones, the spot which always glistens with sweat when Suga is in the midst of heat. It puts Daichi's head at an odd angle, not good for kissing, but he sucks a mark into it anyway. Suga squirms, fingers flexing against his arms at irregular intervals, more encouragement. 

When the angle becomes too much, Daichi shifts to the dip between shoulder and clavicle. He kisses this spot too, the tang of sweat just different enough from the spot below his ear that he can't help but notice, and can't help but wonder, what sort of pheromones is Suga giving off right now? What do they mean? And if he was anything other than what he is - if he wasn't null - what would his sweat taste like then?

Experimentally, emboldened, Daichi turns his open-mouthed kiss into dragging teeth. 

Suga seizes. For a sharp, terrible moment Daichi thinks he miscalculated, hurt Suga when all he wants is to make this good, but when he drags his tongue across the same path, Suga  _ melts.  _ He goes almost completely lax, leaning back in his arms with a soft noise that might be his name. 

So Daichi does it again. 

This time Suga definitely gasps his name, punctuated with his hips twitching unmistakably forward, says his name in a way that makes him answer back,  _ "Koushi." _ He's not sure what's supposed to come after. This is dangerous territory, untread for the both of them. Suga told him, if it's too fast, they can slow down. If he says stop, he knows Suga would. 

Daichi just doesn't  _ want _ to. 

* * *

Suga pulls on a fresh shirt and trades his jeans for sweatpants. Daichi contemplates his own. Daichi contemplates his own shirt, but the thought of putting on more clothes that he’s already wearing is distinctly uncomfortable. 

A few seconds later, Suga crawls back into bed, muttering, "Lay down," and gesturing for Daichi to make space. Without his rapid heartbeat thrumming in his ears, even that muttered request sounds loud. He realizes then how quiet the whole house is. 

Something unpleasant occurs to him. 

"Hey." He matches Suga's volume, soft-but-too-loud. "I have a question." 

Suga rolls onto his side to face him, so Daichi does the same. He traces the visible curve of Suga's smile. Suga starts playing with his hair, gentle fingers either straightening out the mess or making it worse; he doesn't much care which, because it feels really, really nice. His eyes nearly slip shut, and he almost forgets he has a question at all until Suga responds. "What is it?" 

"Ah, it's- Hey, I'm gonna preface this by reminding you that you said to ask you stuff." 

"Good start, good start. You're so embarrassing," Suga says fondly. "Just tell me your question." 

"Er, so. You... can smell things, like, really well." Suga is always passing along comments on pheromones, especially when emotions run high. He does it even when he's not in heat, or even approaching heat. "Does your dad know we-" 

"No way. Omegas are only that tuned in when, you know. It's a heat thing." He hums. "Good point, though. We'll have to plan around that from now on, huh?"

_ From now on. _

"You'd be able to tell, though. Like, all the time." 

"Hm... Maybe. Probably? I think my nose is a little... All that time I spent practicing how to read the court while I'm in heat, I think I trained myself to always be on." 

“Huh.” Daichi says. What he means is:  _ You’re incredible. _

"Did I ever tell you my parents eloped?" 

"They- huh?"

"Eloped. It means they ran away and got married." 

"I know what it  _ means,  _ Suga."

His face splits into a grin. "Just making sure."

"That's- Wow. I had no idea." It explained the kitchen fridge, he supposed _. An exceptionally close family. _ "How, uh, how come?" 

He feels more than sees Suga shrug. "Every year I get more details, y'know? Maybe I'll get the full story someday before I die." 

Daichi wonders if asking why was the right thing to ask. He's so  _ content,  _ comfortable, warm, every cozy adjective he could think of. But Suga brought it up, and Suga still traces the length of his arm between them, his sodium-orange television-blue features as placid as they were a moment before. Suga wants to tell him, he thinks. He's oddly humbled. 

"My dad's family was traditional, I guess. When it came to marriage. Omegas marry alphas." Suga scrunches his nose. "That kind of thing. So when my dad came back from university with a null girlfriend..." he trails off. "I've never met my dad's parents." 

"Shit." 

"Yeah." Suga's hand stills. He said something wrong, Daichi thinks, stone in his gut, but then the hand lights on his cheek. "I don't _ care  _ if you're null, or if you're alpha, or even if tomorrow you present as an omega. Actually, that might be kind of nice." He giggles, and Daichi's anxiety melts back into silence. "I'm dating you, okay? I only want to have this conversation once. I don't care about your sex. I'm dating you." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daichi and Suga make out a Ton in this chapter, & it gets a little intense, followed by a fade to black and afterwards it is implied that more went on, although the extent is left mostly vague. (imo, not a lot happens, but just enough to like, warrant the fade to black). 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

It's a thirty minute bus ride into the next town over. This city only has a few thousand more people than their hometown; not a lot, in the grand scheme of things, but that few thousand difference draws all the cool amenities. 

Daichi won't admit it, but the arcade came up in a Google search. _What do you do on a first date when your date is also your best friend and you have no idea what you're doing or how to date and you really really like him?_

The internet can't help with most of that, but the arcade popped up as an advertisement, and, well, it did sound _fun._ A week later (as promised), and here they are.

"I haven't been to the arcade in _forever!"_ Suga exclaims as they disembark the train, but he heads off the platform with the confidence of someone who knows exactly where he’s going.

"That doesn't really surprise me." 

Suga snorts, but the sound all but disappears into the growing din of downtown activity, the air fragrant with fryer grease, the exhaust from a loitering truck, and something spicy that Daichi has already resigned himself to hunting down by the end of the night. 

"We probably could have gone to the arcade back home." 

Daichi shrugs. "This one's bigger? And we’ve already been to the one at home." 

"Hey, I'm not complaining, I like train rides." Suga takes his hand.

The first thing that strikes Daichi when they reach the arcade is the _noise._ Bells and dings and old 8-bit tunes piping through tiny speakers, distorted and cheerful in a nostalgic sort of way. The arcade lights catch on Suga's hair as they play, first pink then blue then a shade of orange that lights his skin like firelight. That brief flash of orange transports him to last week, sitting content around the fire, legs aching with evidence of a day hard-spent but he barely feels the strain for how Suga finds his way half into his lap, _kissing_ him. 

Jesus, he has it bad.

They play a few rounds of a rhythm game; it doesn't spit out tickets to the winner, which is a shame, because Daichi finds he’s actually pretty good at it, legs in perfect tempo with the arrows dancing on the screen. Suga decimates him at a shooting game, which makes sense, since he’s a setter. Good aim is part of the package. It’s a bit embarrassing after the third loss though.

Daichi has brief designs on trading his tickets for a stuffed animal and giving it to Suga, a move as dorky as it is appealing, but their paltry pooled tickets has other ideas. He wanders away from the hundred-ticket stuffed bears to a selection of smaller toys, mostly trinkets that break as soon as they come out of the package. No big deal, really; not like they're here for the tickets. "What about these?" He points out a six-pack of small erasers, sports-themed: soccer balls, a basketball, and of course, volleyballs. 

Suga laughs. "That's perfect! 

By the time they leave the arcade, the sun is already dipping behind the mountain. It's only late afternoon, but winter is on the horizon, and daylight ends early on this side of the mountain. The cool air is refreshing after the hot arcade, so they spend a while wandering between vendors looking for something to eat. One of the vendors has a few chairs set up, so they pick that stall mostly for the convenience. 

"So this is what well adjusted looks like," Suga says, taking a sip of his strawberry lemonade. A bit out of season - they're well into fall - but it was hot enough in the arcade that Daichi understands the craving.

“Well adjusted looks like novelty erasers?"

Suga rolls his eyes. "Dating, Daichi! The arcade. Stuff other high schoolers do." 

"Oh, so you mean cram school." 

Suga grimaces. It's early enough in the season that they try not to think too much about it, but Kurokawa was pretty upfront from the beginning: He'll play out half the season, and stay long enough to help transition to next year's captain, then leave the club to focus on cram school before entrance exams. He wants to be a doctor. 

"I don’t think Kurokawa counts as well-adjusted." 

"Point." Daichi laughs. “Well, it’s enough for me.” 

“What's enough?”

“Volleyball,” he says. You, he means, and Suga must hear it in his voice, or maybe he feels the same, because the twinkle in his eye softens into something honey-warm. 

Volleyball is only as meaningful as the people you play it with, and I play it with you. When he thinks of Suga he thinks of volleyball. Other things, too, like his wit buried under smiles, his determination, his grit, and his sure, quiet presence. Kissing him. But first is always volleyball. The rest just follows naturally. 

"Wanna catch a movie?" He asks abruptly, afraid if they linger in the moment too long he'll say something even sappier than he feels. 

"Mm!" Suga agrees around his straw, slurping noisily before setting it aside to get out his phone. "I'll see what's playing..." he frowns. "Asahi called?" 

"That's weird." Daichi isn't a fan of texting, and less a fan of talking on the phone, but Asahi avoided cell phones like they could kill him with a ring. Talking on the phone gives him anxiety. Well, more anxiety. "He leave a message?" 

Suga shrugs, phone already at his ear. 

The call only rings twice. 

“Suga.” 

“Hey, Asahi, I just saw you called-” twice, missed it both times, “What’s-”

"Are you busy?" Asahi's voice trembles through the receiver, tinny and breathy and strange. Real fear runs in his voice.

"Everything okay?" Stupid question. Something is obviously wrong but he does not know what else to say, can’t think for how Asahi's voice strikes a chord inside him, a chord that sings _go to him._ "What's wrong?" 

He feels Daichi's eyes on him but can't bear to divert even an ounce of his attention from the shaky breaths still puffing in his ear. 

"I," god, he sounds so _small,_ "I think." 

Daichi touches his shoulder, and Suga instantly leans into it. The support is nice.

"What, uhm, what is- What’s heat like? How do you know if you’re…”

Suga goes rigid. "Are you-?" 

"I don't _know."_

Suga puts a hand over the receiver, straightens so he can turn to look Daichi in the eye. Daichi's expression is a perfect mirror of the feeling in his chest. "We gotta go."

"Is he okay?" 

"I-" He doesn't have the answer. _Yes!_ He wishes he could say. _Yes, he's fine! It's just heat! It's fine!_ Like he has been telling himself for the past year. He and his father and every omega have lived and loved and existed like this, and they’re _fine._

But this isn’t fine, is it? Because Asahi is _terrified._ Heat is normal, natural, but Suga's first heat was still new and frightening even when he knew what to expect. Both Asahi's parents are null, and Asahi is too old for presenting.

"Suga? I'm scared." 

"I'm here, Asahi." He's saved from answering Daichi, though it doesn't feel like much of a rescue. "Are you home?" 

"Yeah." A beat. "I'm- alone." 

The Azumanes are at that conference, aren’t they? Shit. _Shit._

"Then we'll be right there." He certainly isn’t going to make Asahi _ask._ Daichi gives him a questioning look, but instead of pressing, he simply alters their course to the train station.

God, Suga loves him- 

_-loves him-_

Oh. Oh, that's. 

Well, this comes first. He can think about that later. 

"You're on your date. Sorry, Suga. I was..." Asahi's voice is like a gust of skittering leaves, unmoored.

"Don't apologize." 

"It's hard to think."

"I know." Suga tries to quiet his own mounting panic and remember his own first heat. It feels like so long ago now, even though it's been barely over a year. "You don't have to try. Just, uhm... Just go lay down."

Asahi laughs, high and not at all like his soft, easy chuckle. "I don't think I could get up if I wanted to."

Despite himself, Suga laughs too. It sounds just as high to his own ears, threaded with anxiety. 

Daichi touches his elbow as they get on the bus, expression gone from quiet, quizzical concern to a hard-lined composure, which only means his worry has wormed deeper. "Is he okay?" He says slowly, in a tone that leaves no room for avoidance, but Suga has no more an answer than he did before.

He leaves his hand off the receiver when he says, "Asahi’s going to be fine." All three of them need to hear it.

"Are you going to tell me what's happened?" 

Suga shakes his head. "Maybe later." It's not his place, anyway.

The train is mostly empty, so they take some seats toward the back, where he won't be overheard. It’s not like he _cares_ if anyone gives him dirty looks - this is _important -_ but it’s also private. 

"Suga? Will you, uhm.”

"I'm staying on the line until we get there." How could he leave Asahi alone with himself, when he sounds like this? 

Suga keeps up a stream of chatter, even as the bus fills and propriety really demands he end the call, but he's never cares for propriety when it doesn't suit him. Heat comes when it wants; it's not polite. So Suga tells Asahi about their trip to the arcade - _did you know Daichi can dance? No, one of those games with the arrows -_ and the scenery - _mountain looks the same on both sides, but the sun is already going away._ He keeps talking even when Asahi stops talking back and the tenor of his breath tells him his attention has wandered far away. 

From the train station it’s a connecting bus ride out into the country, and walking from there. He holds his phone in one hand and Daichi’s hand in the other.

Last time they were at the Azumane family home, evening sunlight and flickering bonfires softened all the edges, forming a bubble of hazy happiness around the property. Aside from that tense moment with Asahi's cousin, it was _peaceful,_ the sort of place he could imagine lounging the days away with his boyfriend and best friend. But tonight the fading sunlight makes the setting stark, paints the antiquated architecture of Asahi's family home in sharp angles, too large and too empty without all the people and rows of soybeans.

"Suga," Daichi says, firmly. "Seriously, what's going on? Is he okay?" A wince. "He's not, obviously. I mean-" Daichi pulls his hand away and rubs it down his face. "Just explain." 

Suga covers the receiver with his palm. "You can't guess?" That shuts him up; maybe it came out harsher than intended. It’s just, he’s just- 

He’s freaked out. Daichi will understand. 

The Azumane home looms in the distance. Suga finds it difficult to keep up his chatter as they get closer. There's something on the air that pulls at him. This close to the house, carried by the frigid autumn wind far across the empty fields and so faint he wouldn't know it at all if he wasn't already keyed to look but it's definitely there; it smells like family; it's definitely omega, and the smell is definitely in heat. 

"We're here," Suga says, surprised by the sound of his own voice. Lower than it should be, and rough. He clears his throat. _"Asahi."_

"Hn?" 

Suga would have laughed, if not for everything. 

"We're at the door," he repeats. 

"Oh, yeah, okay," A faint commotion drifts through the transceiver, springs creaking, a door swinging open and footsteps on the wood floor. "Okay, I'll- I'll be right there. Gonna hang up now." 

The line goes quiet. He and Daichi wait in silence for a moment, still holding hands. Now at the front door, heat coats the air, thick on his tongue. Has his breathing changed? He can't tell. Everything's gone a little soft around the edges, not soft like the way heat makes his head soft but something similar, like sympathy pangs. 

"Daichi," he says, then buries his face in his neck, inhaling deeply. 

"Hm." Daichi loosely wraps an arm around his waist. All Suga can do is focus on his scent, like sucking in a lungful of fresh air after wading through smoke. It centers him, so that when he hears Asahi fiddling with a lock, he pulls away with a clear head. 

“Okay. Thanks. I can do this.”

Before Daichi can respond, the door swings open to Asahi in an unseasonable tank top and elastic shorts. Autumn is tipping into winter, but right now Asahi probably can't feel the cold. 

"Hey." Asahi rubs at his foot with the other, both without socks, shifting with painfully familiar restlessness, red-cheeked, tank top sweat through. He's not sure what he expected, but it smells a bit like his father, a lot like family. It strikes him with the urge to pull Asahi into a hug and take care of him. 

So he does. Asahi is rigid in his arms at first, rigid like he does not know how to be hugged, rigid like the straight-lined architecture of his traditional family home. Then he sags against him, hides his face in Suga’s neck and breathes, just like Suga did to Daichi. 

Behind them, Daichi says, "Oh." 

Asahi steps aside. If Suga found the smell overwhelming outside, the house itself is unbearable. He freezes in the entryway, covers by slowly toeing off his shoes. At least Daichi looks as out of his element as Suga feels; that counts for something. 

"I'm sorry-"

"I said not to apologize-" 

"I just didn't know what to do." 

Suga gathers himself. He is the _only_ one who knows what to do right now, between the three of them. "Well, you can start by getting a shower." 

"Suga?" 

He pushes his way farther into the house. "Yeah, it will help with the tension, and your back probably hurts-"

"Everything hurts." 

"So go! I'm going to... gonna go dig around in your kitchen." Suga opens windows as he goes; the omega scent bites at his heels like an animal, threading anxiety through him more thoroughly than he wants to admit. The fresh air helps. 

"What are you doing?" Daichi asks when he starts opening cupboards instead of windows. 

"Looking for the medicine cabinet." 

The next cupboard he opens is filled with an assortment of pill bottles; blood pressure medication, iron supplements, bottles filled with unlabeled herbs. He pulls them out one at a time. "Ah!" Suga sets aside a bottle of ibuprofen. 

"Painkillers?" 

"It's for his fever. Pain too. " Pain isn’t so much the issue, in the thick of it. 

"He's not sick, he's just- I mean, he's in heat, right? Not fighting off an infection." 

"He's not sick, but," Suga slumps against the counter. "He's too old for this? If he was going to present, it should have happened years ago. That's how this works." 

"You had your first one just last year." 

"I did." 

Daichi barely hesitates. "So was yours this rough?" 

"It- I mean." His frustrated huff turns into a laugh. "Yes, Dai, it was scary. I was scared. But fifteen isn't that old. Your first heat is supposed to line up with the rest of puberty, because it’s hard on the body. But does Asahi look like he has any growing left to do?" 

Glass heart or no, Asahi dwarfs the entire volleyball team. He dwarfs half the school, and sports a beard that actually suits him. Still very much seventeen, in his second year of high school and coping like the rest of them, but by all accounts he is an early bloomer. 

"You know how I like to make fun of TV shows that play up heat for drama?" Daichi's face falls. "Well, this is going to be worse."

Daichi leaves for the drug store. Without him, the house is too-large, oppressive, distressed omega permeating the air and sticking to his clothes, getting under his skin. Suga makes his way through the house for someplace to sit and collect himself, opening more windows as he goes. The living room is more modern than some of the other rooms, with a large flat-screen television which he leaves off. Opening the windows is a necessity - Suga can hardly _breathe_ \- but the less sensory information Asahi has to process, the easier heat will be for him. 

Not that anything about this implies it will be an easy heat. Suga curls up on the couch to wait, and lets this fact wash over him and wash over him and wash over him, drowning him almost as completely as the smell in the air. Pheromones are messing with his head. Every breeze makes him twitch, tense with fight or flight. 

It's ridiculous. It's natural. If he wants to help Asahi, he can't avoid it.

He smells Asahi long before he sees him; he hears the bathroom door open further in the house, a second wave of fear drifting into the air, carried by hot steam. He hoped the warm water would soothe him, ease away some of the full-body ache that came with a first heat, but all it's done is make Asahi sweat. He can smell it from here. Without thinking, Suga gets to his feet, legs carrying him down the old, long halls of the Azumane family home towards Asahi. He doesn't know if instinct or empathy propels him forward; he doesn't really care. He just needs to _help._

Asahi is still in the bathroom, steam billowing around him. The mirror is fogged, so Suga knows Asahi isn't looking at himself in it, just leaning hard against the counter, shaking. A towel hangs around his shoulders, wet hair hanging down in tangled strands and soaking through the same threadbare shirt as before. Suga should have grabbed a fresh change of clothes. These are already sweat-soaked, saturated with enough anxiety to spur on the worst kind of feedback loop. And like Asahi would think to get a change of clothes for himself, right now? When he's like this? Suga raps lightly on the doorframe to announce himself; Asahi still jumps halfway out his skin, nearly slipping on the wet tile as he spins to look at him, eyes glassy but wide. 

_"Suga,"_ he rasps. His name in Asahi's heat-worn voice ties Suga's stomach with answering anxiety. He sounds even worse in person now than he did on the phone. Technology can't capture the subvocals, and the _smell-_

Again, Suga finds himself propelled forward, instinct or empathy, it doesn't matter. He gets a hand around Asahi's waist, and when Asahi doesn't pull away, uses the other to throw an arm over his shoulder. The mirror is too steamed up for detail, but their reflection looks so much like a pair of teammates helping each other off the court. Suga catches a laugh, half-hysterical. _Instinct,_ he decides, but still doesn't _care._ "Come on big guy, let's go lay down." 

By the time he gets Asahi to the couch, Suga's shoulder is soaked. So when they sit down, he guides Asahi's head to that same shoulder. The rest of him curls onto his side, the only way they can both fit on the couch at all. It's not exactly comfortable for either of them, but Suga figures having Asahi on his shoulder is worth it. The smell should help: Fellow omega, friendly omega, someone he knows and someone he cares for. Suga knows half this caretaking is instinct, not really something he has a choice in. He likes to think he'd do it anyway. Despite the fear and uncertainty and the nagging sensation of being well over his head, helping Asahi with this feels like something he is supposed to, _meant_ to do.

"Water was-" A hitch, more felt than heard, "Was helping, and then- I don't know-" 

"It comes in waves."

Asahi groans, twisting to press his forehead into Suga's shoulder. "This sucks." 

This time, Suga doesn't hold back his laughter, not sure if he wants to agree or assure Asahi that it's fine, that it will calm down, get easier. Truthfully, that might not even be _true._ Asahi is too old for this and age does funny things to a body presenting. So he just laughs.

"Where's Daichi?" Asahi mumbles against him, and that, at least, is sobering. 

"Getting cough syrup." 

At that, Asahi lifts his head to look at him, glassy eyes sharpening with every blink: alert, but not very. The gears stick and tangle behind his eyes. If Suga just waits, that gaze will gloss over again, and maybe he won't have to explain anything at all, just push cough syrup at Asahi and leave it at that. 

He won't. Asahi deserves an explanation, and letting Asahi take anything without one would be taking advantage, and that's despicable, but- 

But he _could_ and that's-

Terrifying, probably. Suga never got like this, so pliant and desperately confused, desperately desperate. 

Did he?

Weakly, Suga asks, "Wouldn’t you rather sleep through this?" 

He knows the moment Asahi gets it by the way his face twists. Suga pretends not to see it, rests a hand on Asahi's wet head and pulls his head back to his shoulder. Conversation closed. Please, Asahi, don't ask any more questions. 

A year of regular, clockwork heats and a childhood of regular, clockwork heats by proxy, Suga never had reason to fear anything when it came to heat. His first was scary-new, intense, but he knew he'd come out the other end and that softened his fear, but- But this- 

Jesus, he is terrified. Heat is terrifying. Natural, and that comforted him. But natural means _force of nature,_ and this is like a riptide. 

"You really deal with this every month?" Asahi is all misery and pity and hope, trapping Suga between answers, neither of them kind. 

_Not just me anymore,_ and, _Never like this._

* * *

Daichi shows up early the next morning and makes him go home; Suga doesn't put up much of a fight. He wants to stay, but Asahi slept fitfully which meant so did he. 

Dad greets him with a cup of coffee. 

"Heard you had a long night." 

Exhausted, Suga smiles anyway and takes the mug Dad hands him. It's still hot. "Something like that." 

"How is he?" 

Suga takes his mug into the kitchen. "Sleeping." Not really an answer, but he can't answer what he doesn't even know. Asahi is a lot of things right now, not all of them familiar. Scared might be a fair answer. Truthfully, Suga is scared too. "Did you get in contact with his parents?" 

Dad gets the hint and lets his question drop. "I got off the phone with them about an hour ago. His mother is going to come home ahead of Mr. Azumane, but she doesn't have specifics..." He hesitates. "It took some convincing." An observation, but Suga hears the question underneath. 

"The Azumanes are all null." Suga goes through the motions of filling a pot for rice. "If she just heard how he _sounds,_ she would be here so fast-" He puts the pot down harder than intended. Asahi called _him,_ not his mom, and that speaks for itself. 

"...It sounds like he is having a hard time." 

Suga sighs, turns on the rice cooker, and joins Dad at the kitchen table. "I guess." Asahi is intermittently scared and then miserable, at times desperately incoherent, others completely lucid, and when he was, "He's really, really freaked out." 

Suga But Asahi looked at him with glassy eyes, disoriented and slow, and- 

It is never like that for him, right? Suga knows himself and he knows what his heats are like and he knows the line between them. He has spent the past year teaching himself to be an expert. And with understanding comes control. 

Except knowing doesn't stop the way his friends suddenly seem _different._ In heat, Nishinoya becomes smokey-sweet, a scent that melts on the tongue; then heat passes, and he is only Nishinoya again. The line is clear. But Daichi. Daichi, he likes all the time. He likes Daichi surrounded by their friends and dodging pickled plums; he likes Daichi during practice, with sweat down his neck; he likes how the first years look to Daichi, the same way he and Daichi looked to Takahiro in their first year. Most of all he loved Daichi, his skin aglow with a day in the sun, made warm around the fire. He liked what came after. 

The line between himself and instinct moved while he was busy watching the play of firelight in Daichi's eyes. Asahi went into heat, his _friend_ and _afraid_ and the line disappeared. Within a week the parts of him that were so neatly defined began to overlap, so that he cannot tell where true desire ends and instinct begins. 

"How do you know it's you?" 

Dad pauses mid-sip and sets his mug down to look at him, earnest but confused. 

Since presenting, if Suga had a question, he just asked, and Dad answered, honest and frank. Why does asking suddenly feel difficult? 

(Because now it's truly personal.) 

"When you're... in heat," he elaborates, reminding himself that whether or not the questions feel personal now, this is still his dad. So he forges on. "In heat, how do you know you're thinking straight and when you're not? If you're not? You think you want one thing, but..." But then he held Asahi while he shook incoherent with want and suddenly everything he felt so _sure_ of blurred around the edges.

The thing he wants to ask and the words he has to ask it barely form a picture, but Dad only looks at him thoughtfully. "That's a big question.”

Suga smiles weakly. “I had a big night.”

“Is that what brought this on?" 

"Daichi and I..." 

Dad makes an _ah_ of understanding, followed by an expression that looks almost proud. 

"Well, I'm glad you felt like you could ask." 

Suga supposes, as far as sex talks go, he was overdue for an awkward one. As far as beginnings go, it could have been worse; maybe because he already knows all the big points, and has known them for most of his life. This is slightly different, more nuanced. He and Dad have a frank relationship; Dad meets him on his level, rarely judges, not even when a thirteen-year-old Suga confessed to staying up far far past his regular bedtime. _You're old enough to decide how much sleep you really want._ It only took a month of four-hour nights and full school days before he chose to sleep early again, all on his own. Now Suga keeps his own schedule, the kind of responsible schedule Dad and Mom wanted for him in the first place, except he came to it on his own. They respect him. They give him as much room as he can handle, let him figure out how big that room should be; and when he finds the edges, rests his hand against the walls of his experience, he goes to his parents. 

When that happens, Dad looks at him exactly like this: Thoughtful and fond and proud. "It's not a huge deal," he hedges. "But..." But I'm just so _confused._

"You're asking the right questions, but good questions don't have clean answers." 

"I know." If it was easy, he could puzzle it out on his own. He _had_ it puzzled out, the pieces of himself slotting together with clear edges, until his feelings for Daichi grew and tipped the puzzle on its side with only his kiss and his smile. 

"Well, heat is more than just one thing," Dad starts. 

"It's affection," he parrots back automatically, an echo of conversations past. 

"Mhm. Affection comes in different forms. Sex is one of them" 

Suga nods. They're still in familiar territory, so he continues through the motions of fixing breakfast, overfilling a pot with water and adding rice for okayu, not in the mood for anything more complicated than porridge. 

"You care about Asahi, yeah?" 

"Yeah, he's my friend." 

"But you don't want to-" 

"No!" Ew, no, not ever.

"Not even in heat?" 

"He's my _friend."_ In heat, Suga likes tucking himself against Asahi's side, likes his encompassing warmth and size, how it makes him feel just a little small; it comforts the omega parts of him, even if logic knows Asahi is as meek as they come. Most of all he likes that Asahi lets him.

"Now, what about Kiyoko? She's an alpha." 

Suga pauses. 

He and Kiyoko are friends too, have known each other as long as he and Asahi, but. But Suga does not tuck himself into her side when he's in heat, not even when he really wants to. Where Asahi and Daichi smell clean and unclouded, she is spicy-sweet, smooth like jasmine, thick on the back of his throat like Nishinoya but a thousand times more cloying for their shared history. If he focuses too hard, it is dizzying. 

"That's... She... She makes it complicated." Not she alone, but _she_ as in his alpha friends. They crowd him between platonic disinterest and half-desire. As if to banish the sense-memory, Suga shakes his head. 

"I imagine she does." Dad smiles sympathetically. "But you haven't acted on those feelings. Have you ever wanted to?"

No. Never. Like every omega, Suga cultivated a sharp self-awareness, rigid self-control; Daichi shattered all of it. 

Maybe that's Dad's point. 

"It's okay to have complicated feelings." Dad nudges him out of the way and takes over stirring the pot. "Heats are complicated." 

"Heats are normal," he says reflexively. 

"So is astrophysics."

Suga snorts. It feels so contrary to everything else his dad has ever said on the matter: Heat is normal, heat is simple, heat is nothing to be ashamed of. Nowhere did Dad say it would be easy. It is just, he and Mom are so sure, so steady, like river stones settled and smooth. He never paused to consider how the current wore away all their edges. 

A moment of silence, the only sounds their hissing gas stove, bubbling rice. The front door creaks open, and moments later Mom blows into the kitchen, already undoing her hair from its bun. 

_"Okayu,"_ she says happily, and then, almost as an afterthought, "Good morning," as she brushes past him to wash her hands in the sink. 

"It's not ready yet," Suga tells her, at the same time Dad says, "Haruna, darling, would you say I'm not myself when I'm in heat?" 

"Dad, _please-"_

"I would say you're very _pushy,_ darling husband." She dries her hands on a loose dishtowel and accepts a bowl from Suga. She looks between him and Dad, reading between the lines. "How are things with you and Daichi?" 

_"Mom please."_

* * *

Suga steps into the gym with Asahi not a step behind, and Daichi breathes a sigh of relief. Last night's text was short and to the point. Asahi went into heat. Suga was staying with him. Daichi thought- he wasn't sure what he thought, other than that it was happening all over again: One of his best friends presented as omega and again, _again_ he could do nothing, understood barely more than he did that first time, when Suga fainted into his arms 

The Suga that steps into the gym imposes itself over the image Daichi had in his head. The imagined dark circles beneath his eyes brighten into his fiery glint, the wrinkles in his shirt smooth into clean, fresh laundry. His hair is neat. Daichi smiles.

Beside him, Noya goes rigid. He snaps up from his crouch, all the limber muscle that made him a born libero filling with sudden tension. He looks across the gym the way he looks through the net. He licks his lips. His mouth hangs open.

"Shut your mouth and quit scenting the air," he warns, at the same moment Noya gapes,

"Asahi, holy shit!" 

Out of respect, Daichi elected not to inform the rest of the team. 

Maybe that was a bad decision.

Noya bounds across the gym, swerving deftly away from Daichi's attempt to hold him fast. 

Fuck. 

Asahi backpedals. Asahi _reels,_ straight into Suga's side, hides behind his back as Suga steps deliberately in front of him, blocking Noya with his body and a warning look. Daichi was so focused on Suga, he barely paid Asahi a second glance. He should have. Long tufts of hair spill out from his ponytail, framing his face askew. The circles Daichi expected to see on Suga deepen Asahi's eyes into something terrifying and intense, if you didn't know him. 

Wow, he looks - exhausted. Spent. A mess. 

_It wasn't that bad for Suga, was it?_

Of course, Suga's dad is an omega. As far as Daichi knows... Asahi has no family like that. His aunt? He can't imagine having a heat just- just fucking dropped in your lap, no warning- 

_It's just puberty,_ he thinks in Suga's voice. But the thought terrifies him regardless. 

Asahi _looks_ terrified.

 _Screw it._ Daichi abandons the pretense of this being a normal situation and runs after Noya, and reaches their side of the gymnasium just in time to hear Noya whine.

"You smell _amazing,_ Asahi." Noya manages a half-step forward before Suga blocks him off again, sharp-eyed like they're in a match. Like he's got something to prove. 

Daichi smacks Noya on the back of his head. "Calm down, Romeo. Don't you see you're freaking him out?" 

Asahi peeks over Suga's shoulder, looking meeker than Daichi's ever seen him, wide dark eyes and a slight tremble in his shoulders. He lifts his chin. "I'm okay, you guys. Really." He steps around Suga. "Hey, Noya."

"It's time for practice." Kurokawa doesn't raise his voice even a bit, but their heads all turn to him in unison. "We already have plenty of omegas on this team. I know you're not that easily distracted." 

Noya doesn't say anything, and that’s answer enough. 

Daichi thinks he shouldn't be surprised by how quickly they find a new status quo, but it surprises him nonetheless. Sure, when Suga passed through his first heat, he wasted no time finding his new normal. But he had his dad's advice to help him, and the stubborn streak that had the pair of them practicing long nights until Suga felt satisfied. Asahi was like him: Null, and utterly clueless.

Nishinoya and Tanaka find them at lunch, but rather than beg Suga away into practicing with them, they settle down to eat. Tanaka makes conversation with Kiyoko in starts and stops, so painfully caught in his crush he doesn't seem to notice the glitter in Kiyoko's eye. She's laughing at him. Not maliciously. It might even be affection, of a sort. Daichi is fairly certain Tanaka is barking up the wrong tree, romantically speaking, but then, Kiyoko is inscrutable, made up of so much poise he's proud to say he can read her at all. Suga pokes Tanaka in the back, laughing at him; when Suga laughs at you, he makes it clear, and somehow that invites you to laugh along. 

Noya takes the opportunity to crawl his way into Asahi's personal space. Asahi allows it. He might even lean into it. Daichi can't tell. He looks at Suga for confirmation and Suga pulls a face, nose wrinkling the way it always does when trying to parse too many scents at once. An omega thing. Daichi follows Noya's example, scoots himself into Suga's personal space and bumps him in the shoulder. It's the least he can do. It's _all_ he can do, as a null in what feels like an ever-growing circle of alphas and omegas. He's so out of his depth. 

Suga bumps him back, rests his head on his shoulder and subtly, slowly, breathes in. The worry recedes. He might be null and clueless, but he can still be Suga's port in a storm; an empty, null scent in fraught waters. 

"They're cute," Suga hums, jarring Daichi from his thoughts and beckoning him to look back at the pair. Noya _is_ in Asahi's lap now. Okay, just perched on his knee, but fuck, they're at _school._

"They're moving kind of fast, don't you think?" 

"Not everyone takes a year and a half to start dating." Suga laughs at _him._ Or, them. But his laughter quickly peters out into a sigh. "Noya is putting out pheromones like nobody's business." 

"Should we tell Asahi that, or..." It seems like the sort of information a new omega deserves to have explained in plain terms, and who else would do it? Daichi would if he could. Maybe he could try and give Noya some advice, but he only has advice on how to date _Suga._ He and Asahi may both be omega, but he knows without asking that his experience with Suga can't be generalized. 

"I will. He seems happy though, doesn't he?"

He... certainly does. Kiyoko has pulled the pair of them into her conversation with Tanaka. He can't follow exactly what it's about, but the content is so much less than the substance, than Asahi with his head tucked over Noya's shoulder the way Suga so often does to him. Occasionally, subtly, Asahi tilts his head just enough that his nose brushes near a spot behind Nishinoya's ear to no response from anyone but the brief flutter of his eyes, like taking a breath in the moment before match-point. Tanaka is too wrapped up in Kiyoko to notice, but Kiyoko, he knows she's the observant sort, and she barely blinks an eye. 

Suga talks a lot about scent. Or- he doesn't, actually, except for that first private practice, where Suga grabbed him by the arm and pushed his face into his neck. So it's, it's noteworthy, that Suga would comment on it now. 

Without realizing, Daichi gets a hand around Suga's waist, pulling him in close. If Suga finds the public display odd or distasteful he doesn't show it. Suga tucks himself into his side and finishes his lunch in silence. Daichi feels him breathe, the subtle shift against him. Asahi tilts his head again, his height allowing him to do so without appearing even the least bit out of place. Chest tight and breathless, he cannot help but wonder what he smells like to Suga. If he smells like anything at all. 

The breathless feeling follows him all the way home, into the shower, into bed. As he drifts off, realization steals his breath completely: 

_I'm jealous._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first draft of this chapter was 2.8k long. It's at? 6.4k now?  
> So, I'm a bit late on my self-imposed schedule, but also, oh boy, were there some Edits


	7. Chapter 7

A month later, Nishinoya kisses Asahi after practice. 

The few left in the gymnasium fall still. Captain Kurokawa pauses with the door half open, cold mountain air chilling sweat on the back of Daichi's neck. 

It is not just a peck on the lips but a firm, almost desperate kiss. Noya fists his hands in Asahi's jersey, yanks him down to level with his mouth, and advances until they're forced to move backward. Asahi stumbles, and that's what finally makes them break apart. Daichi can't see Noya's face from this angle, but Asahi's eyes are wide, unblinking. "Uhm." 

"What is it?" Noya pipes back, casual and maybe a little defensive. 

"I have to- uh, have to go-" 

Daichi is so focused on Asahi coming toward him he doesn't notice Suga moving until he yanks Noya back by the collar of his shirt and hisses,  _ "Nishinoya." _

Daichi sighs, and goes after him. 

At the door, Kurokawa's hand lands on his shoulder, a questioning glance. 

Daichi shakes his head. "I think I've got this." 

"Mhm," Kurokawa makes a noncommittal noise. "A crowd wouldn't do him any good."

"Asahi!" Daichi shouts after him; his voice carries over the empty campus, breath clouding in the air. Asahi whirls to look at him, and even from this distance, his face is red, expression distinctly  _ panicked. _

That answers a few questions, but asks just as many new ones. 

"H-hey, Daichi," Asahi says as he jogs over. 

Daichi comes to a stop beside him, suddenly realizing he has  _ no _ idea where to start with this. Or exactly what happened. Noya kissed Asahi. Asahi fled the damn room. And Suga was worked up about  _ something,  _ so. So he figures it probably wasn't good. 

"What was that about?" he asks bluntly

Asahi flinches. Crap. "Ah, Noya just got- Carried away, I guess. He's uhm, in," Asahi fumbles, face pinched, looking aside with the expression of someone trying very hard to remember his lines. "Not heat. The other thing..." 

"In rut?" he offers, face doing something that has Asahi shrinking away. Daichi only has a moment to feel guilty about that before the full extent of what Asahi implied sinks in.  _ Rut. _ He suspected as much, but having it confirmed does not feel like a victory. It complicates things. Complicates because it simplifies, rubs away nuance, replaces it with single-minded instinct, the breadth of which he just can't  _ grasp. _ For all Daichi taught himself about omegas, he knows next to nothing about alphas. They just aren't relevant; they are less than relevant. Suga isn't one and Daichi will never be one, so what is there to know? Live and let live. 

About time he threw that philosophy out the window. It already failed him once.

"Right. that. Rut." He says the word rut like he's still working out the sound of it, weighing its meaning until it makes sense.  _ Don't hold your breath,  _ Daichi wants to tell him,  _ You just have to roll with it _ . "I, uhm, can smell it? And mine was- I don't know what a rut is like, but heat without help is… I just didn't expect him to kiss me." 

All his frustration with Noya snaps inward, jealousy  _ (inadequacy) _ flaring in his chest. Daichi squashes it ruthlessly. It's not important right now- Or, or ever! It doesn't matter if Asahi _ (omega)  _ being around Nishinoya _ (alpha) _ soothed his heat (in ways Daichi never could and ways Suga is too proud-selfless-considerate to seek out or even let himself want); what alphas and omegas can do for each other isn't the  _ point. _ Daichi takes a deep breath (the air doesn't smell like anything at all) and lets it out slowly. 

"How Noya deals with his rut is  _ his  _ problem." And okay, maybe he sounds a little more ruthless than intended, but damn if it didn't feel good. Besides, it’s the  _ truth, _ and Asahi needs someone to shake the world off his shoulders. "You're not obligated to let him kiss you in public because he’s in his rut and you're dating." 

_ "Dating?" _ Asahi shrieks. 

"Don't tell me-" For fuck's sake. "Come on, Asahi." 

He stalks back to the gym, sensing more than hearing Asahi following behind him. Before they even reach the door, they catch strings of muffled yelling, too indistinct to make out words. 

It occurs to him that he has never seen Suga yell before. 

It occurs to him that's not something he wants to see. 

Asahi stops beside him, eyeing the door with palpable apprehension. Daichi takes a breath and slides it open. The yelling cuts off, but only Noya looks at the door. The pale gymnasium fluorescents aren't doing him any favors; he looks green, and small, while Suga stands his full height, shoulders squared, body angled like he's corralling Noya into a corner despite standing in center court.

"Asahi-" Noya starts, and Suga snarls, cutting him off. It reminds Daichi of the day Asahi returned to practice after- After. Suga stood between him and the rest of the team like a coiled viper, poised to lash at anyone who could be a threat. Even an inadvertent threat like Nishinoya, enthusiastic and keyed into Asahi like maybe no one else on the team except Suga himself. Noya ran to him, and Asahi stepped around Suga. Asahi assured them,  _ I’m okay. _

Now Asahi stays a step behind him all the way to the center of the gym, and he stays there. Great.  _ Great. _ Hide behind the one guy who  _ doesn't _ have the full picture, who can't have the full picture, ever. 

_ Stupid, _ he thinks, not sure if it's at himself or Asahi or Noya or the whole damn mess of a situation. Daichi does his best to ignore that thought. He crosses his arms instead.

"I just don’t see how it’s your business," Noya sniffs.

"Maybe, but Noya, I don't know if either of you can really make an informed choice here, and that’s definitely my fault!" 

"Guys, guys!" Three pairs of eyes snap to look at him, and Daichi thinks maybe he should shrink away, like that's the normal response, but he doesn't. "It's no one's  _ fault. _ You can't go looking for information you don't know is missing." Daichi rubs at the back of his neck. "And Suga, they're not - I know it  _ feels _ like they are, but they're not your responsibility." 

Suga purses his lips. "Who else was going to explain things? Not his parents." 

He has a point. Daichi knows he does. But that doesn't mean Suga is  _ responsible. _ And besides, "It's not that complicated. You two just need to have a talk about-" Daichi looks at Suga, thinks,  _ Oh,  _ and,  _ oops. _ "About boundaries. And your relationship. You know, like a couple. Did you seriously not even ask him out, Noya?" 

"I thought it was just understood." 

"Sometimes, you have to use your words."

"Well," Daichi starts when he and Suga are finally alone. He tries for a laugh, though it comes out a little strained. "That happened." 

Suga stands motionless, still looking in the direction Asahi and Nishinoya went. Then he sighs. "Good thing you were there. I had a lot more yelling in me." 

"I've never seen Noya so stunned." Or scared, for that matter. "I'm pretty sure you got through to him. At least a little bit." 

They start walking. They don't really have plans for the evening, but the journey home takes them mostly in the same direction. He's always been grateful for that coincidence; it means they have more time to spend with each other, uninterrupted by school or the responsibility that comes with practice. Just them. A reprieve. But at the moment... 

At the moment, it's just  _ awkward.  _

"So," Daichi starts, then stops. 

"So." 

"Uh," Daichi rubs the back of his neck. "I guess we better- have that conversation. I'd rather not be a hypocrite, giving them that advice while we still haven't... talked about..." _ It.  _ Say what you mean, Daichi. "What word do I use here, protocols? I know if I did something you hated you would  _ tell me, _ but-" 

"But it's better to use your words. I know."

Daichi drops his hand back to his side, neck still prickling with self-consciousness, but not quite as strongly. "So..." 

"Give me a moment to think?" 

Daichi falls silent. They walk. 

"I think we shouldn't go on dates when I'm in heat," Suga says, so fast Daichi barely catches all the words. 

"That's easy. We can do that." The bonfire was a bit of a fluke, anyway. 

But Suga goes on. "Or kiss. Or touch. No, wait, I like touching but not-" He makes a frustrated noise, cousin to the fiery tone he took with Noya, but turned inward, and Daichi doesn't like that, not at all. "Touching is fine if it’s just cuddling!” 

Daichi remembers visiting Suga after he presented and before he came back to school. He remembers sticking his foot in his mouth.  _ Can I help? _ Hugging. Touching. Physical touch is good for an omega in heat, doesn't always have to be sexual, wasn't back then and usually isn't even now- 

"But kissing- I mean, making out. That's too much-" 

Daichi's stomach drops from under him, the warm memory of that bonfire going suddenly cold. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-" 

Suga catches on immediately. "You remember I started that, right?”

“Sure, but you weren’t-” 

“I was! It's not like I lose control of myself when I'm in heat, Daichi. I still have  _ agency. _ I'm still myself." 

He pretends not to hear how Suga hesitates when he says,  _ myself. _ Still, Daichi feels reassured that he didn't- take advantage, he supposes. It all happened so fast, and all of it was good. But maybe he didn't have all the facts. Maybe they should have had this conversation a year ago. 

"If I wasn't myself while I'm in heat, then I'd-" Suga shuts his mouth. 

Daichi slows their pace, turning his head to look at him. He expects to find Suga's brow drawn, mouth shaped into his thoughtful little frown, deep in concentration. But instead he just looks- annoyed?

"What?" Daichi prompts. Suga startles, so maybe he was deep in thought after all. 

Suga huffs. "I'm just not sure how to phrase this tactfully." 

"Then don't be tactful." 

Suga's brows draw together, but he smiles regardless. "You're my boyfriend," he says fondly. It feels like a reminder. He doesn't like the sound of it. 

"Okay." Suga lets out a breath, looks straight ahead and reaches for his hand. "If heat made me any less of myself, then I'd probably have thrown myself at Kiyoko a long time ago. I don't like her the way I like you," Suga speaks quickly and casually, gaze still straight ahead, but Daichi's hand aches for how hard Suga grips it in his. This is hard to hear but it must be even harder to say, and that- 

Suga's obvious distress shouldn't make him feel better, but it does. 

"I'm pretty sure Kiyoko is a lesbian," he says, just for something to add, so Suga knows he's listening and receptive. 

Suga laughs; not the light, lilting sound Daichi fell in love with, but a good attempt. Daichi loves him for it all the more. 

"Yeah, probably. But that doesn't change how she  _ smells,  _ Dachi. When she is having her rut or when I'm in heat... Or sometimes, they overlap, and that's just  _ unbearable." _

All the squashed, silenced jealousy-inadequacy-uncertainty unfurls in his stomach, like a weed sensing rain.  _ What does she smell like? _ A masochistic impulse wants to ask.  _ What do I smell like?  _ At least he already knows the answer to that one: He smells like nothing at all. 

_ But he's holding my hand, _ he reminds himself.  _ He wouldn't bother telling you if he didn't care. _

"I guess it's like an itch.

When I'm in heat, or someone around me is in heat, or rut, it itches. Ugh, it's not a perfect metaphor, because it's not just... I mean, I learn a lot from how it smells. I guess that's sort of the point? I know how this stuff works. More than Asahi, anyway. That's why I got so angry with Nishinoya, because Asahi doesn't  _ understand-” _ He shakes his head. "That's not the point I was trying to make. Sorry. It's hard to explain." 

"Like explaining purple to someone who's colorblind. I get it." 

"Mhm. I get all this sense information but if I'm in heat I don't get to choose how I  _ interpret _ the information. So, that's why." 

"You don't want to make out when you're in heat, because it's too much?" He guesses, more question than statement.  _ Is this what you mean? Do I understand you? I'm _ trying.

Suga shakes his head, and Daichi's stomach drops away completely. Before he can ask what he got wrong, Suga says, "When we kiss, I want to  _ be _ there. I want to choose you. Every time. And I just think, a choice means the most when you understand all your options. Does that make sense?"

Daichi's heart thuds in his chest, relief slowing his pace until they've stopped walking completely. 

_ I want to choose you. _

"Can I kiss you now?"

Suga grins at him, relieved and playful at once. "I don't see why not." 

"Hmm," Daichi agrees. He takes both of Suga's hands. "I like that answer."

* * *

The following day, Kurokawa finds him at the vending machines during lunch.

"Hey, Sawamura." 

"What's up?" Daichi inputs the number for Suga's tomato juice into the vending machine. 

"I have a request." 

The tomato can  _ thumps, _ but Daichi doesn't bend to pick it up. He turns toward Kurokawa fully. Sensing the conversation will go long, Daichi plants himself on a step.

"As you know, I am leaving club activities to focus on graduation." 

Daichi nods mutely. Truthfully, he's been trying not to think about it. 

"I wanted to talk to you about my replacement."

"Who I think should be captain?" 

Kurokawa flicks his gaze skyward, mutters something, then fixes him to the spot with a look. 

_ "You _ should be my replacement." 

_ "Me?"  _ That's not- he means, it's not what he expected, to start with, not to mention ridiculous, because, "Shouldn't it be Suga?" 

"Why?" 

"Because he's-"  _ omega, _ he almost says, but stops short, thank god. He doesn't think Suga would make a better captain only because he's omega, even if stereotype would paint him as someone naturally inclined to inspire and watch over others. Suga  _ is _ those things, inspiring and caring, but not because he's omega; Asahi is an omega, but he's not the sort to watch over others so much as the sort to be watched over, the way Suga helped him through his first heat. 

Which is to say, he doesn't think it should be Suga  _ only _ because he's an omega, but wouldn't it be better, if the captain isn't null? Daichi can't smell a heat, or soothe one by his presence. Suga can. So it  _ has _ to be Suga. Daichi wouldn't want to follow anyone else. 

"He's just better equipped to be captain." 

Kurokawa raises an eyebrow. "I spoke with Suga."

Ah, see? Daichi  _ is _ second choice. But if Suga was offered the position, then why the hell did he refuse? It's not like Suga to back down from anything, especially not a position where he could make a difference.

"I didn't want to put you on the spot. Suga seemed to think you'd accept." 

"I-" 

"If I may explain, before you go refusing," he cuts in, then doesn't wait for Daichi to respond, which is wise, he supposes, because he feels ready to flip. As it is, he can only keep listening. "You and Sugawara motivated our team to strive for nationals when most of us would have been happy just placing in a tournament. You focused our practices, and designed training regiments when you saw them lacking. You- inspired us." He smiles, the gentle curve of his mouth a rare thing, from him. The tightness in Daichi's chest unfurls at the sight, and springs into his eyes. They feel wet. "I did not believe our team could hold its own beyond our prefecture. You changed that. Now I know we can. I want to see my kouhai reach nationals. No one has a better chance of bringing them there than you." 

That's all true of Suga as well. When Daichi voiced his plan to build a better practice, Suga took the task with enthusiasm. He printed the exercise science journals. He stayed working just as late. He was there with him, every step of the way. Daichi opens his mouth to say exactly that. 

Kurokawa beats him to it. "And," he says, with a note of finality, "I saw how you handled Asahi and Nishinoya. You kept your cool.” And Suga didn’t, which he thinks might be Kurokawa’s point. “Objectivity isn’t the same as obliviousness. Embrace it." 

Except it feels like a handicap. It feels like  _ failing. _

"I... don't know what to say."

He raises an eyebrow. "The obvious response is yes. If you have concerns about the players who are not null: Sugawara will make an excellent vice captain." Kurokawa’s gentle expression sharpens to a smirk. "I was vice captain once too. It requires a lot less tact."

Oh, so Suga wants the position where he can still hit his kouhai in the stomach. That makes sense. Daichi can’t help it: He laughs. 

"Sawamura. Make Karasuno fly." 

He plans to do just that. 

* * *

Kurokawa makes the announcement that evening at the start of practice. At the end, Asahi dresses quickly and finds him just outside the club room. 

"You're the captain now, right?" Asahi addresses him, but doesn’t look at him. Combined with his nervous tone- Okay, not a great start to captainship. 

"Kurokawa will still be around for a few more practices, but yeah, I guess I am." It feels weird to say out loud.

"So I figured I should tell you I, ah, won't be able to play in the next tournament." 

_ What? _ is his first response, but he’s captain now, so he tries for just a step more level. "Is everything alright?" 

Asahi doesn't look at him. "They put me on probation. For, ah... I'm missing a lot of class these days..." 

Daichi narrows his eyes. "That's not fair.”

"That's how it is," Asahi says, but he doesn't disagree. 

"But it's not! Suga was out for a week, they gave him time to catch up. I mean, I'm the one who brought him his homework. He didn't have to miss practice because they banned him from club activities, that's absurd." 

"Yeah, a  _ week. _ " Asahi looks down at the pavement, blinking rapidly, "You only get a week."

"But you miss a hell of a lot more than that!"

"I know!" Asahi scrubs the heel of his palm over his eyes, wiping tears back before they can fall and Daichi's heart aches. He's so fucking  _ helpless, _ worse than helpless. Clueless. "I should have just come back to class."

"You were in... Asahi, you couldn't have." Look, Daichi will never understand heat the way Suga understands it, the way Asahi understands it. He'll never  _ live _ it. But he saw Asahi that first night, he heard the terrified tremor in his voice and saw it mirrored in every taught, anxious line of Suga's body. 

"I could have  _ tried." _

"Could have tried what?" 

Asahi’s shoulders hitch, their heads snapping as one to see Suga coming around the corner. He’s already changed into his street clothes, but flips down his large, fur-lined hood when he spots them. 

"Suga,” Daichi greets. Asahi looks back down at the pavement, like that could obscure the wetness in his eyes. 

“Hey,” Suga removes his hands from his pockets and folds them across his chest, frowning, every bit the vice captain Kurokawa said he’d be. He goes to Asahi’s side so quickly that Daichi only catches his profile in pieces, but he’s trained enough to notice the twitch of his nose, the wrinkle between his eyebrows, the frown made of more concern than disappointment. “Have you been crying?”

“It’s stupid.” 

“It’s not  _ stupid,” _ Daichi bites, surprised by the force of his own knee-jerk reaction. “They put Asahi on academic probation.”

“You failed a test?” 

Daichi waits for Asahi to answer, but Asahi only scrubs at his eyes again. 

“They put him on probation because he missed too much class. Because of- his heat.” He barely stutters, but it’s still there; after all this time the topic is still so alien, so foreign he can’t begin to approach it with the subtlety it deserves, the subtlety Suga employs as easily as breathing. 

Suga snaps his head up to look at him. “That can’t be right.” 

“It is,” Asahi's voice is remarkably steady even though the wetness in his eyes has yet to go away. Glass heart, but he’s the ace. “The student handbook says. One week for heat leave.” 

It always seemed like such a distant thing, the stereotypes Suga felt he had to prove himself against. They don’t matter in the volleyball club; what matters is he’s their setter, and more than that, what matters is the way he rallies everyone on the court. Daichi never saw why Suga felt the need to act the way he did, always proving, proving, proving himself against an unseen but omnipresent eye.

He gets it now. Asahi didn't skip class; he was in heat,  _ very bad heat, _ and they’re punishing him for it, banning him from club activities because he had the gall to- to be omega? To have a body? “It’s not  _ fair.”  _

“No. It’s not.” Suga puts a hand on Asahi’s lower back and pushes until they both stand straight. “We’re going to do something about it.”

* * *

Suga looks at him across the kitchen table, jaw set with determination. "I have a plan." 

The student handbook is spread out between them, but they haven't touched a page in what felt like hours. 

"Let's hear it." 

"It's... It will probably get us disqualified. We won't make it to nationals." 

Nationals is just an event, the unattainable goal they've been pushing toward for two years. But what is one more year, in the scheme of things? Nationals is an idea. Asahi is real. 

_ No one has a better chance of bringing them there than you, _ Kurokawa said when he made him captain.  _ You can bring my kouhai to nationals.  _ But Kurokawa cared more about his teammates than clout; he did not stay with a dying sports club because he just wanted to win. It's the same for him. Asahi is their teammate, but more than that, Asahi is their friend. Daichi thinks Kurokawa will understand. 

He should bring this to the team. It's not the captain's place to throw away months of hard work for one person. 

He doesn't care. 

"This is more important." 

Suga nods, shuts his student handbook, and lays out everything. 


	8. Chapter 8

Dateko's libero skids to a stop, in position to dig Asahi's spike before it even breaks through their block. And it does, a clean line shot powering straight through their wing. But Dateko doesn't take games just because of their iron wall; when they can't cut you off at the head, they know how to keep a volley going. The libero's dig flies high, the power behind Asahi's spike sending it straight back over the net, wide and uncontrolled. 

_ We forfeit this game before we began, _ Suga reminds himself, even as he pushes his aching lungs to get into position. Daichi's receive lays the perfect foundation for an even more perfect set. The ball barely touches his fingers on its way to Asahi, already making his approach to the net; he sets the ball high, a little too far from the net but it's Asahi's perfect set, exactly what he needs to power through those blocks again. Again, and again, and again. As many volleys as it takes to bring them victory. 

_ We already forfeit the game, _ but- 

Asahi jumps, his form perfect, utterly focused- 

_ But it would still be nice to win. _ They worked for it. They deserve it. 

It's a perfect spike, the resonant  _ thud _ of connection cracking in his ears. 

Dateko's block is better. 

They lose. 

* * *

They've been crying on and off since the handshake, some more openly than others, but even Noya can't hide his blotchy cheeks or red around his eyes. He can't hide other things, either. 

Noya's scent is as loud as his personality. Now, distracted with their loss, he projects in waves, if not drawing every omega on the team down into his angry pit then at least shouting his misery from the rooftops. 

It seems cruel to just let him stew, considering that this time tomorrow, they'll have to break the news that the games they played - fought for, won, lost, cried for - didn't matter. 

Except they _ did _ matter.  _ Do _ matter. Even knowing what he knows, Suga  _ tried.  _ He played his hardest. Daichi played his hardest. Their win might not be official but it's as real as their loss. The games might not be official but they have  _ pride,  _ and you can't disqualify pride for playing with unregistered players. 

So he lets Noya wallow. When they get back to school, Daichi will rally them with a word, and they'll go back to his place and start hashing out how to explain to everyone that they were disqualified for using a player that their school disallowed from appearing on the official roster. He hopes they won't be mad. 

But even if they are- 

This is more important. 

Beside him, Asahi makes a quiet, miserable sound and sinks into his seat. He stopped crying somewhere on the highway, but he still stares forward with wet, glassy eyes, still fighting back tears.

Maybe Asahi senses him looking, or maybe that sound of distress served as some kind of conclusion to a larger internal battle, because in the next moment, Asahi speaks up. "I'm sorry." 

He sounds so  _ small _ , his voice a tenor Suga only ever heard once before.

_ Oh, _ Suga thinks, dread creeping up on him. He sucks in a breath, a breath that pulls in more of Noya, more sorrow, more alpha. He filters it out without thinking, a habit so practiced it's second nature, a habit so practiced he turns it into an advantage. Suga isn't in heat, thankfully, and neither is Asahi. 

But Asahi is still so new to this. But Noya is his friend (his boyfriend?) and Noya is an alpha and, well.

"Sorry," Asahi says again, softer and somehow more pathetic than before. He is an open wire arcing out for connection. 

"It's not your fault we lost," Suga says, voice so soft the car almost drowns it out. 

"But I kept getting blocked-" 

"And  _ I  _ set your spikes-!" Shouting, now. He didn't mean to shout.

"Perfectly! And I wasted them-" 

_ "We  _ lost." Daichi cuts above their shouting with ease, exactly like a captain. The van quiets. He's good at this captain thing, even though he agreed to Suga's stupid plan to make Karasuno change that stupid rule; he's a good captain even though he knew going ahead would get them disqualified. All their hard work, wasted. 

Daichi is a good captain  _ because _ he agreed. 

Suga loves him. 

But they still lost, and no one feels loss more acutely than the ace. 

The silence lingers. Daichi folds his arms over his chest, like he's waiting for something, but no one speaks. 

"Come on, guys. Volleyball is a  _ team _ sport. We win together, and we lose together. And you know what?" He's speaking to all of them, but Daichi looks only at him. 

"What?" Suga mouths. 

"I had  _ fun."  _

"Losing isn't fun," Noya sulks, but it's the first thing he's said since they left for home. Daichi cracks open a window, and suddenly the whole day feels bearable. 

"No, but Daichi is right, you know? Asahi, my set was perfect because I set the ball to you. I don't want to lose with anyone else." 

* * *

The following week, Daichi stands at the head of the clubroom, his team scattered in front of him. Some leaning against the wall, others sitting cross-legged, all shell-shocked. 

Daichi helped these people practice. He led them through that tournament. He  _ lost _ with them. Every night he spent laboring over how to break the news turns to glass in his throat. No one looks like they saw a good night's sleep. God knows he didn't.

"Disqualified?" Noya repeats, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Our rosters didn't match," Daichi says slowly. 

"What, like we forgot a player? That's stupid." 

"Who-" Asahi speaks up from his spot on the floor. He stops. Swallows, and steels himself, like this is just another match. "Who was the unlisted player?" 

Asahi knows. It's in the deliberate tilt of his chin, the challenge in his eyes. He knows, but Asahi deserves to make him say it out loud, doesn't he? He deserves at least that much. 

"Actually, Asahi-" 

But he is already on his feet. "You said you had it solved!"

"We solved it." The whole team snaps their heads to look at Suga leaning against the side wall, but Suga only looks at Asahi; his expression is even more deliberate, more pointed. He says, with just as much challenge, "It wasn't  _ right, _ not letting you play-" 

Asahi makes a choked sound. 

"-so we decided to fix it."

"By letting me get you disqualified?" Asahi demands, voice edging higher. He gets to his feet, steps back toward the door. "What if- What if we won? All the way to nationals, but then because I played, you-" 

Asahi snaps his mouth shut, turns around, and leaves.

When Daichi focuses his attention back on the room, Tanaka is already on his feet, Noya not far behind. They both seem taller, suddenly. 

"Someone better explain what the fuck is going on." 

He and Suga exchange a look. Daichi goes after Asahi. 

He finds him near the west bike rack, right by the exit he'd take to catch the bus line that runs out into the country, which means Asahi really was about to just leave them all to stew in his outburst until- when? Tomorrow at lunch? Next year?  _ Some fucking captain you are, Sawamura. _

"You should have told me," Asahi says without preamble, still fiddling with his bike lock. Daichi slows to a stop, gravel crunching beneath his feet. 

"We figured you'd tell us not to."

Asahi jerks up to look at him, eyes narrow with something almost feral. "That's because I  _ would have."  _

He was crying a moment ago, Daichi realizes belatedly, or maybe just holding back tears. Does it matter which? Either way, this hurt him, same as not getting to play would have hurt him. At least this way, they might be able to fix the rule that caused this. Right? 

Before he has the chance to make that case, Asahi presses, "Did you think we couldn't make it?" 

"No, of course not! We're a good team."

"Then you were willing to let the team get there, and then have it taken away, and it would have been my fault! Just like it's my fault we lost to Dateko- It would have been-" 

He rubs the tears from his face, and Daichi is struck suddenly by an overwhelming sense of dejavu. This same bike rack, Asahi crying for this same reason.

"None of it was your fault." Hesitantly, not really sure how, he reaches out to put a hand on Asahi’s shoulder, the way Suga does so often. 

Asahi stumbles back from him as if hit. "I didn't  _ ask _ you to put me back on the roster. I would have been- It would have been okay, there's still next year-" 

Before Daichi can argue how  _ not- _ okay that would have been, more gravel crunching underfoot draws their attention. Suga approaches them, looking angrier than Daichi's ever seen him. 

"This isn't  _ about _ you, Asahi." 

"If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have been disqualified." 

"It's not about the fucking win," Suga snaps, stunning them both to silence. A cold fury settles over him. "You weren't allowed to play because of a backwards rule and not enough compassion." 

And that's what it comes down to, isn't it? Compassion?

"If omegas want understanding we can't just ask for favors, we have to demand it." 

This was never about changing a rule so their friend could play a game with them. It  _ is _ that. But it's about more. 

"Is being penalized for something you can't control fair?" 

"...No." Asahi's tears fall unhindered.

"Do you want it to happen to anyone else?" 

"No." 

Suga's tone gentles. "This isn't about you, Asahi. Not just about you. It's about me too. Anyone like us." 

This time when Suga touches Asahi on the shoulder, he leans into it. 

"I just don't see... How does getting us disqualified change anything?"

Suga giggles, such a departure from his cold fury that it leaves Daichi stunned and spellbound and assured of his brilliance. "That's simple. We're going to tell the newspaper." 

Asahi shakes his head, faint laughter nothing but a huff of breath when held against Suga’s brilliance. “Leave me out of it, okay? Good luck, but just... I need to take a break.” 

* * *

As it turns out, when the assistant district attorney's son calls the newspaper, they don't just send a reporter. They send a whole damn film crew. 

"Did you plan this?" Daichi asks Suga in a low voice, trying not to be overheard by the crew setting up around them. 

"No, This is better than I could have planned."

Daichi fails to see how a  _ film crew  _ at their  _ high school _ constituted 'better than planned.' Okay, so that's not- He does get it, actually. They wanted a disparaging article in the paper that they could bring to the school board and leverage to get the rule changed. They were going to strong-arm the administration via public shame, or at the very least make the conversation very, very uncomfortable for them. So Suga is right. A special on the local news is so, so much better than they could have anticipated. It's just- 

Daichi is  _ really _ not prepared to be on T.V.

The reporter - a short, friendly woman, with round cheeks and a very short haircut - introduces them off-camera, and gives a brief overview of the story. He doesn't catch all of it but the pause leaves him more than plenty of time to wish, not for the first time, that Suga was made captain instead of him. 

"You used a player on academic probation, who was not included on your official roster with the tournament."

Daich sucks in a deep breath, more nervous in this moment than he was through the entire Dateko match. There's more at stake now than Nationals and pride. "That's correct. And the tournament was within its rights to disqualify us. We want to take this opportunity to apologize to the tournament's organizers for whom we created extra work, and respectfully ask this not reflect on our team in future tournaments." There, that's good, makes them seem apologetic and polite, like this wasn't a scheme from the moment Asahi tearfully told him,  _ I can't play. _ "It wasn't our intention to cause problems," it super was, "and the tournament is not at fault. The player we used was placed on academic probation for reasons Sugawara and I-" the camera pans to the right, getting him in fram.  _ You should be interviewing him, _ but Suga isn't the captain, so Daichi continues, "-felt were unfair. The player's probation was undeserved. This player is a hard worker - he is also our best spiker, and omega." 

The reporter's eyes light up. He said the golden word, the word network producers are obsessed with and viewers obsess over and the word guaranteed to make readings spike: Omega.

The look in her eyes strikes Daichi with a sudden lurching sensation, like the moment before falling. He braces for her to take control and steal the interview away from him. 

Suga takes the reins instead. "Our player was placed on probation due to heat-related absence." 

The microphone shifts to Suga, and Daichi barely contains his relieved sigh. 

"I am Sugawara Koushi, vice captain of the Karasuno volleyball club, and involved in the decision to include this player in our starting lineup." He introduces himself smoothly.

"You’re also the assistant district attorney's son."

Suga smiles brightly. "I am!"

"And an omega." 

His smile tightens almost imperceptibly. "I am." 

It's not like Suga makes a secret of it, but Daichi can't help but wonder: How does the reporter know? Did they research it specifically? Is she an omega herself? An alpha? It's not like Daichi can smell it the way Suga can. Familiar frustration unfurls in his gut. But this isn't about that, so he ignores it. 

"As an omega, you must be familiar with the school's policy on heat leave."

Daichi's frustration fans a little higher, but Suga is the one with the reins, and he steers them unflinchingly toward turbulent waters. 

"I am aware the current rule allows for only seven days leave. But that’s not just insufficient. It also really highlights a lack of understanding by the administration." They're in the rapids now. "Seven is the average length of heat for adults, but recently presented teenagers have a lot more irregularity! The policy completely fails to account for that. This specific case represents another well-documented phenomenon where someone who presents unexpectedly and late in life experience heats more difficult than average. It is actually incredible our player returned to school when he did." 

"Unanticipated sounds rather irresponsible." 

For the first time in this interview, anger flits into Suga's posture. He goes still, all his casual poise coiling tight until he looks ready to explode, and then - the cool, logical fury from before. Daichi is almost certain he's the only one who noticed, because Suga never even stopped smiling, but he knows every line and microexpression of Suga's face. 

He's pissed. 

"I agree." The anger hidden from Suga’s face makes itself plain through his voice. "It was irresponsible, but it’s not  _ his _ fault. Our school system leaves that education to parents, but his immediate family is null. So there’s no reasonable reason he should have been able to recognize the signs! It should be the school's job to ensure all its students are informed at a young age-"

Okay, that part was not in their plan, but holy shit if it doesn't sound like Suga planned every word of it. 

"Ah, but that is a different issue." With this, Suga angles himself away from the reporter and instead looks into the camera. "We want to take this opportunity to ask that the school board reconsider their policy on heat accommodations." 

The room hangs on his every word, Daichi included. Suga sounds like the sort of person who gets paid to be on TV, not just someone interviewed for a local news story covering high school sports. He sounds  _ professional.  _ Like this is what he’s meant to do.

The interview wraps shortly after, summed up neatly and reductively by the reporter in a sound-byte worthy sentence, but what else could they expect? This is already so much more than they expected.

"What," he breathes once he feels the cameras stop rolling, turning to Suga and putting his hands on either shoulder, "Was that? You sounded like a politician, you snake!" Suga laughs his high, bell of a laugh, the laugh that never fails to steal his breath, in this moment more than any other. 

"I practiced that in the mirror for an hour." 

"Of course you did." 

"I had more about our school system's policy on sexual education. You know how much easier it would have been if Asahi just hadn't been so scared? We might as well try and get that changed while we were at it." 

It’s remarkably generous for Suga to say  _ we _ when he’s been the driving force behind this the entire time. Just him, brilliant, doing everything in his power to change things for the better, to make them fair. 

Daichi hoped it would be enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this chapter wraps up Daichi and Suga's second year of high school! 
> 
> Also, a bit of house-keeping:
> 
> When I began posting this fic, I did not have the fic written to completion - and while I've continued to work on it as I post, the amount of track I have ahead of me is... getting kind of low. With that in mind, I am going to either slow down my posting schedule (twice a week-ish), or halt posting until I'm finished writing the second half (half!!!!???!?) of this fic. I am leaning a bit toward the second option. 
> 
> I wanted to let you all know, so no one thinks I've abandoned the project! I'm WAY too obsessed with this fic to abandon it. And in my opinion, the best is yet to come :3 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading, and an extra special thank you to everyone commenting! See ya on the flip side


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